Pickpockets stealing your information without touching you!

New technology is giving pickpockets a bigger advantage.

Thieves can now steal your credit card information as you're walking on the street or in a store... without even touching your wallet.

The technology centers around those radio frequency identification, or RFID credit cards you can scan instead of swiping.  

In a crowd, Walt Augustinowicz blends right in. And that's the problem.

Augustinowicz, Identity Security Expert - "If I'm walking through a crowd, and I get near people's back pocket and their wallet, I just have to get that close to it and there's my credit card and expiration date on the screen."

Armed with a credit card reader he bought for less than a hundred bucks online, and a netbook computer, we put Augustinowicz to the test. Patrolling, looking for RFID chips to read and credit card information to steal.

"There you go. It's a MasterCard."

"Yes, it is."

"And right now I've got the middle blocked off here. Is that your number and expiration date?"

Even people who thought there was no way we could pick their pocket electronically without laying a hand on them, soon found out, yes we could.

"You have a Sun Trust card in there and that's your account number and expiration date. I can actually show you here the entire number."

Reporter: - "What do you think?"

"I don't like it. That's just too vulnerable for everyone to take advantage of you."

Even scarier, Augustinowicz says bad guys could work a crowd, stealing numbers then e-mail them anywhere in the world.

"You know, after a game here, I could literally pull couple thousand cards."

Credit card numbers, expiration dates, and in some cases, even your name. Enough to do damage.

"We've done it. We've picked up the phone, called 800 numbers, ordered stuff under a fake name, shipped it to a foreclosed home and the product comes in the mail."

It's not just your credit and debit cards at risk. While harder to hack, all US passports issued since 2006 contain RFID technology, that can be read and swiped.

"It gives me a lot of personal information like your date of birth, your photo if I wanted to make some sort of I-D."

Augustinowicz is founder of Identity Stronghold. His company markets secure sleeves, and ID holders meant to block RFID hacking. Among his customers, the US government.

"As soon as I squeeze this, it can read it. When I have it closed, it can't read it."

So is Augustinowicz just a boogeyman, trying to scare people into buying a product or is the threat real? We showed video of Augustinowicz in action to computer security expert Mark Gillenson.

Gillenson - "It's potentially a major problem."

Gillenson calls it technology run wild. He calls our findings compelling.

Gillenson - "I think people do need to be concerned and should be aware and we'll see if this becomes a major problem."

And that's the big question. Experts at the identity theft resource center say they've never seen a case of RFID skimming used to steal information. But Augustinowicz believes that's because the crime could easily go untraced. Unsuspecting people, falling victim to just another face in the crowd, hidden scanner in hand.

"You have a Chase card."

"Yeah."

"Here's the expiration date and your number."

"That's right. That's it."

"You might as well sit there and print your credit card number across your t-shirt and walk around with it because it's the same difference."

Fortunately, there are a few ways you can protect your information.

You can use aluminum foil to block unwanted scanners.

Also, if you carry two R-F-I-D cards, those signals will