Fraud Alert Protection Removed by House Bill

[carincross]

In the last two months I have been notified about the following threats on my personal identity data:
1. The Veterans Administration admited losing data on over 26 million veterans.
2. Metropolitan State College of Denver informed me that it had lost personal identification data on a large portion of its students, including me.
3. The Denver Election Commission said that it had "misplaced" or lost my personal data - including my signature.

In this morning's Washington Post Brian Krebs writes an article that lists ways you can protect your identity and what to do if you suspect it has been stolen or compromised. The first thing that Mr. Krebs suggests is to file a fraud alert with the three major credit bureaus. The alert lasts 90 days and can be renewed.

Unfortunately, at the end of the article Mr. Krebs writes the following:

" the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog group in Washington, said a bill recently passed by the House Financial Services Committee and supported by the major financial institutions would exempt companies from alerting consumers about data thefts or losses if the company does not know whether that loss places the consumer at a direct risk of identity theft. The bill also would reserve credit freezes for ID theft victims only."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700106.html

This is outrageous. This bill would remove one of the few tools available to consumers to help them protect their identity and their credit.

[AnOhioan]

1. Government of, by, and for, the corporations n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

2. Credit freezes dilute the value of credit bureau data

In other words, the major credit bureaus can't sell their databases at the same premium when too many consumers opt out. In the states where consumers have strong protections like California, it still costs $10 to add a credit freeze to your credit data at each bureau (fraud alerts are free.) Think about that. Ten bucks per credit bureau to tell them to respect your privacy.

Hey, I have nothing to hide. Why worry? :sarcasm:

[badgervan]

3. Starting To Wonder....

Something smells awful fishy about all of these recent data thefts around the country. I don't recall this happening at all before the huge VA screw-up, and now it seems that almost every day there is another mega theft of personal info. Any way that this is a coordinated, planned deal by some bad guys? I would imagine one hell of a lot of damage could be done to the country with all of this info being used in some kind of planned havoc.

[alfredo]

4. If the losses (theft) were from institutions that trend Democratic

then I'd worry.

[tanyev]

6. Actually, the number of incidents since Feb 2005 is getting close to 200.

A Chronology of Data Breaches Reported Since the ChoicePoint Incident

Estimated grand total of # of people affected: 85,149,786

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

I've been wondering for some time now. :tinfoilhat:

[salin]

5. Bills like this show that the GOP Congress no longer does the peoples'

work, now - not only does it serve their corporate donors - they serve their corporate donors at the expense of the interests of their constituents.

[williesgirl]

7. Article lists states that have credit freeze options that will be voided

if this bill passes. Naturally, VA isn't one of them. We only worry about who marries whom, whether a woman can choose what happens to her body, etc.

Remove ALL of the them from office and start fresh with people who know if they don't listen to the people, they too will be out of a job.

[colonel odis]

8. but of course, we can always subscribe to credit notification programs.

just imagine how much money the credit bureaus would make if every american with credit paid them $10-12 a month for a credit report.

imagine. i'm sure they have.

so let's not look for any bills from congress that would impede the theft of our credit.

perhaps more people simply need to hijack members of congress' credit. then, perhaps, something could be done.

[rustydog]

9. MORE privatization! sure why not.

[cantstandbush]

10. And where are the Dems in explaining this to consumers?

There is so much out there for Dems to use against the Republicans you have to wonder why they don't. Of course, the MSM do not cover these bits of information either. Every fucking station talks about the same news items ad nauseum. Not one major cable or network news veers from covering the same stuff almost at the same time. I would love to see a news show that covered these little known information items that affect the daily lives of middle class. The public would be interested if they were forced fed these items as they are the Republican talking points.