Senate Committee Examining ID Theft
Posted by Vince Ryan on Mar 21 2007 06:09:01 PDT


The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today to explore solutions to the problem of identity theft.

One of the ideas that will be unveiled is a proposal to require banks, credit card issuers, and other lending institutions to publicly disclose internal figures on fraud and identity theft losses.

The proposal, being put forth by Chris Jay Hoofnagle, a lawyer and senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, would require lenders to disclose how many cases of ID theft customers have suffered as well as the kind of fraud attempted and the losses incurred by banks.

Requiring such reporting would help law enforcement understand ID theft and combat "synthetic" ID theft, in which fraudsters combine pieces of real and fictional identities to open accounts, Hoofnagle said. Synthetic ID theft usually amounts to losses for banks, but not for individual consumers.

The American Bankers Association opposes the idea, saying revealing bank data on ID theft would be of no help and that it would distract banks and lenders. Banks already privately share ID theft information with each other, the ABA said.

Click on "Read More" below for the full article by The New York Times.

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