Who are you?

Taking on identity theft in Washington

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

With all due respect to William Shakespeare, times have changed.

Our name defines us as a person; it supplies our sense of self. So when our identity is stolen, it cuts far deeper than the loss of material possessions. It raises the question: Who are you?

Adding insult to injury, victims of ID theft are left with the daunting challenge of contacting multiple creditors to repair the damage caused by the thieves. Repairing and restoring their credit may take the victims several years.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States, and Washington ranks seventh in the nation for reported identity-theft cases. And it’s not just checks being stolen from your mailbox. In many cases, the potential for identity theft arises when the security breach occurs somewhere far from home. Recently ChoicePoint, a large corporation handling the personal and financial data of millions of consumers, was the victim of a security breach. As a result, more than 100,000 consumers, including 3,000 Washingtonians, had personal information exposed.

Senate Democrats have aggressively pursued consumer protection legislation to help consumers better anticipate threats to their financial identities and to provide a structure where victims are notified and aided through the process.

Recent legislative successes include:

• CREDIT FREEZE - Senate Bill 5418 allows a victim of identity theft who has submitted a valid police report to a consumer reporting agency to place a security freeze on his or her report. If a security freeze is in place, information from a consumer’s credit report may not be released to a third party without prior  consumer authorization. The freeze remains in place until the customer requests its removal.
• FRAUD ALERT - Consumers often need to obtain a police report to place a fraud alert on their credit report and to ensure credit history reflects fraudulent activity. SB 5939 revises Washington’s identity theft statute to facilitate easier reporting by the consumer to credit reporting agencies. Law enforcement departments must provide upon consumer request a copy of any police report filed by the consumer.
• NOTIFICATION - Consumers can better protect themselves when they are informed of potential problems. SB 6043 requires agencies, and businesses that own or license computerized data containing personal information, to disclose any discovered breach of the system’s security. Any resident whose personal information was or is believed to have been acquired by an unauthorized person must be notified.

These measures lay the groundwork for preventing identity theft in our state, but much work remains to be done. During the 2007 legislative session, the following proposals are likely to come before the Senate:

• IMPROVED CREDIT FREEZES - Since our present system puts much of the corrective burden on the victim, it makes sense to give consumers the means to take proactive steps to protect themselves. Why force a consumer to wait until they are a victim of identity theft before they can take action on their own behalf and place a freeze on their credit report?
• CREDIT SCORING - Many insurance companies providing personal insurance make use of a credit score to rate insurance. Victims should not be penalized with bad credit as a result of identity theft. The Legislature may consider prohibiting the denial of personal insurance because of identity theft.
• EASY ACCESS - A consumer credit reporting agency could make direct contact methods (phone and e-mail) more readily available and information on placing a freeze could be prominently displayed and easily accessible.
• BETTER COORDINATION - While the value of fraudulently obtained purchases might be relatively small in each jurisdiction, resulting in a lower priority for each law enforcement agency, the combined fraud spread over multiple jurisdictions is often extensive. Identity theft cannot be thwarted through a piecemeal approach by 100 different law enforcement entities. It requires an aggressive, coordinated effort at the statewide level. Identity thefts cross jurisdictions and our solution must also cross jurisdictional, governmental and bureaucratic boundaries.