Congress gets a chance to combat identity theft
Scott Giordano didn’t know his identity had been stolen until he decided in 2005 to move to take a new job. He’d put a down payment on a house and quit his job as a San Bernardino firefighter before hearing that he’d failed a background check conducted by the employer that wanted to hire him. The reason: There were nine people, in different parts of the country, employed under his Social Security number.
“We went from thinking we were moving to a beautiful state to a great new job and a beautiful home to spending a year doing everything and anything we can just to make it,” Giordano said. Because a firefighter must have a variety of security clearances, the identity fraud rendered him virtually unemployable, he said.
“You just feel like a duck in a shooting gallery,” said Giordano, who thinks his record is now clean enough to return to firefighting. “Something clearly has to be done.”
A decade ago, identity theft was almost unheard of. Last year, 15 million people became victims of the crime, researchers estimate. It has become so common, some say, because Social Security numbers are emblazoned on too many easily accessible documents -- both on paper and the Internet -- and companies have been careless in their handling of personal data.
Your Social Security number is a key identifier that can allow criminals to open credit in your name -- and even blame you for crimes they committed. You are generally not held liable for fraudulent charges rung up by thieves who steal your identity, but clearing your credit records of bogus accounts can take months and cost thousands of dollars. In the meantime, as in Giordano’s case, the damage to your life can be incalculable.
“The fundamental problem with identity theft is that we use Social Security numbers as an identifier and an authenticator, and yet this number is littered all over society,” said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a Washington-based advocacy group. “When the bad guys have no trouble getting your Social Security number, using it as an authenticator is doomed to failure. Getting Social Security numbers out of circulation is a key part of the solution.”
The federal government is among the biggest culprits, displaying Social Security numbers on Medicare cards carried by 42 million seniors and on military identification cards carried by millions of members of the armed services and their families.
The House Ways and Means Committee this month unanimously approved a bill that could sharply reduce the incidence of identity theft by barring companies and the government from displaying Social Security numbers on a variety of documents and websites. It also would prohibit the sale of the numbers except in limited circumstances.
The bill, HR 3046, also would require the federal government to retool its systems to create a different identifier, much like private healthcare companies have done to eliminate Social Security numbers on health insurance cards.
The measure also would prohibit businesses, schools and government agencies from displaying the numbers on the Internet or on checks, employee identification cards, student IDs or any other card used to gain access to goods and services.
Utilities and other entities also would be barred from requiring people to provide their Social Security numbers as a condition for receiving service, Mierzwinski said.
“One of the statements that came out of the hearings on this bill is that 150 million Americans’ personal information may have been compromised in the past two years,” said David Certner, legislative counsel for senior citizens advocacy group AARP in Washington. “We are obviously talking about big numbers.”
Yet, despite the fact that the bill sailed through the Ways and Means Committee, some say the measure will have a tough time becoming law unless voters get up in arms, calling and writing their legislators to get them to support it.
One reason opposition to the bill is likely is that the government would have to spend a significant sum of money to retool its systems to use an alternative number. In addition, credit reporting companies, data brokers and other businesses that make money by selling consumer information are gearing up to fight it, Mierzwinski said.
“Pretty much everybody wants to carve out an exception for their business,” he said. “The pressure to weaken these bills is fierce.”
So perhaps the most important step you can take to prevent identity theft is to urge your representatives in Congress to vote for such legislation.
“Telling your legislators what you think about bills that are up for vote is critically important,” said Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
Foley said 39 states had laws that allow consumers to stop credit bureaus from giving their information to anyone. And most states have laws that require companies to notify customers if their information is compromised in a security breach. But the federal government has neither protection.
“This bill,” Foley said, “is at least a step in the right direction.”
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By the numbers
Number of identity thefts in the U.S. in 2006: 15 million
Average amount of time spent to repair credit: 330 hours
Average cost to repair credit: $1,400
Percentage of victims who report recurring problems: 70%
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Source: Identity Theft Resource Center
