Preventing Identity Theft

(SAN FRANCISCO) - Identity theft is a serious crime. It occurs when your personal information is stolen and used without your knowledge to commit fraud or other crimes. Identity theft can cost you time and money. It can destroy your credit rating and ruin your good name. By taking a few cautionary steps, you can deter, detect, and defend against identity theft.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2008, an estimated 11.7 million persons, representing 5 percent of all persons age 16 or older in the United States, experienced at least one type of identity theft in a 2-year period; the total financial cost of identity theft was nearly $17.3 billion.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America. Victims come from all walks of life – from everyday people to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Robert De Niro, Ted Turner, and Warren Buffet.

As technology increases so will the number of victims of identity theft. The places where our information is stored, and the ways that identity thieves can get at that information, continue to multiply. Easy availability of confidential financial information, coupled with sloppy credit-granting practices by creditors and credit bureaus, makes it easy for identity thieves to open accounts in our name.

What protections do Americans have? In the fall of 1998, Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1028. This legislation created a new offense of identity theft, which “prohibits knowingly transfer[ring] or us[ing], without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law.”

In Oregon, identiy theft is a Class 3 felony (ORS 165.800). The statute is vilolated if a person commits the crime of identity theft with the intent to deceive or to defraud, obtains, possesses, transfers, creates, utters or converts to the person’s own use the personal identification of another person.

On January 1 2008, a new identity theft law (SB 583) went into effect in Oregon. Anyone who maintains personal information of Oregon consumers must notify their customers if computer files containing that personal information have been subject to a security breach and if the security breach affects more than 1,000 consumers, the responsible person or organization must report to all nationwide credit-reporting agencies, without reasonable delay, the timing, distribution, and the content of the notice given to the affected consumers..

The Data Accountability and Trust Act 2009 (DATA) (H.R. 2221) is pending in Congress. In its current form, DATA requires businesses to notify customers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if sensitive information has been exposed to a security breach.

A security freeze <www.dfcs.oregon.gov/identity_theft/security_freeze.html> is way to give consumers real control over access to their credit reports. A freeze prevents access to one’s credit report to new creditors. This closes the loophole that identity thieves have exploited, since most businesses will not issue new credit or loans to people without first reviewing their credit reports.

Ultimately, the best protection against identity theft is a careful, alert consumer. Consumers should be extremely careful to whom they provide confidential information, including Social Security numbers, credit and debit card numbers, and bank account numbers. Thieves are constantly “phishing” for confidential information. Phishing is the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an e-mail purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors, or information technology (IT) administrators.

Consumers should carefully check their monthly credit and debit card and bank statements and immediately dispute unauthorized charges. Credit card holders have the protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act <www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre16.shtm>, which is enforced by the FTC.

It is also advisable to check your credit reports and dispute any credit report errors, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act <www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre21.shtm>, which is also enforced by the FTC. Consumers are entitled to a free copy of their credit reports annually from each of the three credit reporting agencies — TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. <www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp>

Consumers should also be careful how they throw away paperwork containing confidential information. It is a good idea to shred such documents.

If you are a victim of identity theft, I suggest that you follow the advice on the following Oregon.gov website <www.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/driverid/idtheft.shtml>

For more information on identity theft, I highly recommend the FTC booklet Talking About Identity Theft: A How-to Guide <www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/downloads/TalkingAboutIDTheft.pdf

Salem-News.com writer Ralph E. Stone was born in Massachusetts. He is a graduate of both Middlebury College and Suffolk Law School. We are very fortunate to have this writer's talents in this troubling world; Ralph has an eye for detail that others miss. As is the case with many Salem-News.com writers, Ralph is an American Veteran who served in war. Ralph served his nation after college as a U.S. Army officer during the Vietnam war. After Vietnam, he went on to have a career with the Federal Trade Commission as an Attorney specializing in Consumer and Antitrust Law. Over the years, Ralph has traveled extensively with his wife Judi, taking in data from all over the world, which today adds to his collective knowledge about extremely important subjects like the economy and taxation. You can send Ralph an email at this address stonere@earthlink.net