Identity Theft Today

Many people are familiar with the term identity theft in America today, but most are not aware of how it actually occurs. Some statistics from the Identity Theft Resource Center show how extensive this crime really is for everyone throughout the world, let alone just in the United States. It indicates the following:

*In 2006, there were 15 million victims, or 2 victims in just over every 2 seconds, *Per capita, the states with the largest victim populations include: New York, California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington and Texas, *In 2001 to 2002, there was a victim increase of between 11 to 20%. From 2002 to 2003, the increase rate was at 80%, *49% of the victims states they do not feel they have adequate protection from such crimes, *Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 3.6 million households affected by identity theft in just a 6 month period in 2004.

These are just some of the statistics for private households, let alone the impact on business in the US; the occurrence rate for identity theft is continuing to rise. One study indicates that in 2005, the cost to business was $56.6 billion.

There are essentially 5 sources of identity theft crimes that are committed throughout the United States. Some are more obvious than others as a source for such criminals.

1.The first to be considered is driver’s license theft where a driver’s license number is stolen and then applied to another person. As these licenses are often used in such common things as cashing checks, admission identifications, age verifications, they can be very useful to someone who is able to assume another’s license number. Thieves will take a driver’s license number and create an ID with their own picture, but your license number and then the burden is placed on the victim to prove who they actually are.

2.A second area is with stolen Social Security numbers as these identifiers have become universal in their use to verify who someone is. These numbers are used for wage and tax reporting and in some cases, employee or student ID numbers.

3.Another area for theft is medical identity fraud that is becoming so prevalent as there are increase numbers of people without medical insurance. People will steal an identity for medical insurance coverage for necessary treatment. However, if not caught, then an individual’s medical records can be compromised with the data maintained, substituting items such as blood type or other basic information for the thief’s information rather than maintaining the integrity of the victim’s information.

4.A fourth area of theft is in criminal/character information where someone with a criminal record may assume someone’s identity that does not have such a record. A victim may also assume the criminal’s criminal records electronically and then be faced with proving they don’t have a record, effecting employment opportunities or credit opportunities. Any employment that involves fiduciary requirements may be excluded if a victim has unknowingly has had a criminal past substituted to them.

5.Finally there is the area of financial identity theft. This is where a criminal has obtained someone’s identity for their credit card use, taking loans out in someone else’s name, written bad checks against someone else’s bank account or other such acts.

The federal government has passed several statutes that require non-public data collected to be protected by businesses of all types. To follow are some of these statutes to protect individuals and employees of companies from such crimes. Included in the statutes are new compliance requirements for companies that maintain non-public information on both employees and customers/clients, as reflected below.

FACTA – Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act – applies to all businesses that maintains or possess consumer, EE, past EE or job application information,

Red Flag Act – Compliance is required by June, ’09 that requires the company to approve and implement a written Identity Theft Prevention Program on both new and existing accounts,

HIPPA Security Act – applies to any organization that collects or retains health information – expanded in 2006,

Gramm, Leach, Bliley Safeguard Rule – 8 federal agencies and any state can enforce this law that applies to any organization that maintains non-public information on its clients, customers or EE’s.

With these legislative requirements, as listed above, businesses are required to have an Affirmative Defense Response System in place to protect private information. With this, there must be 1) An appointed information security officer for the company/business, 2) A written plan to protect non-public information of customers, clients and employees, and 3) hold mandatory training for employees who have access to non-public information.

There are ways to fight back once someone is aware of that such a breach has occurred. According the Federal Trade Commission, a victim can take the following steps:

1.Place a fraud alert on your credit reports and be sure to review your credit reports. Contact the three (3) main reporting agencies that track a person’s credit. They are: Equifax (1-800-525-6285 or www.equifax.com), Experian (1-888-397-3742 or www.experian.com), and TransUnion (1-800-680-7289 or www.transunion.com). Note that once a fraud alert is placed with each of these agencies, the victim is entitled to free copies of your credit reports if requested by you. 2.Close the accounts that you know or believe to have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. Once one is aware, then the institutions must be notified in writing by certified mail. Once the accounts are reopened, make sure that you are using new pin numbers and do not use obvious pins such as dates of birth. Also be sure to ask about necessary forms to dispute fraudulent charges to have them removed. 3.File a report with your local police report or the police where the incident took place. This will be in the form of a “Miscellaneous Incident” report form, but it may be required from some credit card or banking institutions. It would also be a good idea to check with your State’s Attorney General; this can be found through the web site of: www.naag.org for a full list of State Attorney Generals. 4.File a report with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) for they can refer the complaints to other appropriate federal agencies. This can be done online at: www.consumer.gov/idtheft. However, knowingly submitting false information could subject you to criminal prosecution for perjury.

Because of the rise in this crime and the vulnerability that is generally felt by the general public, there has been a rise in many identity theft programs to prevent this crime. I can offer a program that will protect against all 5 areas of identity theft outlined above: drivers license theft, social security theft, medical identity theft, character/criminal theft, and financial identity theft.

This is a program that is administered through Kroll Corporation, which will not only monitor these areas for theft, but also notify and then also do the work to restore your own identity should something occur. Working with business, we can also establish the affirmative defense for the company and then help establish these benefits for their employees.

Finally, we can also tie this in with a legal protection program that will allow anyone to seek legal counsel to ask any questions they may have associated with these and many other circumstances; this can be done with no cost to the employer.

This is not an issue that will go away anytime in the near future, but steps can be taken to protect yourself. I can also offer a program that will also aid in the restoration of your own good name and identity should it be stolen. I would encourage any contact with questions or inquiries on this subject.

I’m Harry E. Kessel ( www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/hkessel or 678-205-6010) – an identity theft specialist.

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