This is insane!!!!!!!!!!


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Buyer Beware: Bill Would Make It Harder To Protect Your Identity

June 16, 2006

By Connie Thompson


Video : KOMO 4 NEWS
Bankcard customers, Boeing workers, and now millions of American vets have had personal information stolen, but a bill before Congress would make it tougher to freeze your credit.

Bill Would Make It Harder To Protect Your Identity


SEATTLE - Bankcard customers, Boeing workers, and now millions of American vets have had personal information stolen, thanks to some lax security with the data.

If businesses have such a hard time protecting your private information, why are they trying to keep you from protecting yourself with a credit freeze?

As it stands now, if you want to keep thieves out of your credit files, you either have to have your identity stolen or exposed through a security breach. And it may get even tougher.

Local vets are still fuming about the stolen VA laptop that exposed their personal information in May.

"What were these people thinking?" asked veteran Rob Hitchings. "Why were they allowed to take this information home?"

"It's their fault that this happened!" said vet Dan Daniels

They're angry, but at least now they can freeze their credit files.

They finally got an official notification letter from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, confirming the data breach that exposed their names, birth dates and other private details.

Under Washington state law, you can freeze your credit file if you have written proof of a security breach, or proof that someone has stolen your identity.

But a new bill in Congress will preempt all state laws and make credit freezes harder to get.

House Resolution 3997 - the Financial Data Protection Act - restricts credit freezes to only victims of identity theft. Lifting the freeze would take up to 3 days.

If your private information is breached you'd have to wait until fraud occurs.

And at the rate things are going, the chances of your information being breached are very high.

I found a running count of data breaches since early last year -- nearly 200 cases, and nearly 85 million names!

The data is stolen from hospitals, banks, insurance companies, and phone companies to name a few.

The biggest offenders? Colleges and universities who are constantly hit by hackers, retailers, phone companies and other private corporations where computer sensitive equipment is lost or stolen, and all sorts of financial institutions and government agencies, including the military.

And as local vets are learning, the chances are also high that your private information will be breached more than once.

Daniels and Hitchings are also part of the big Bank of America and Boeing data breaches last year.

"So you've been double whammied?" I asked Dan.

"Oh yeah, definitely," he replied. "So to say I'm upset about it. I'm definitely upset about it."

The new federal bill would also limit your rights to know when a breach occurs.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna says the driving force behind the weaker law is the powerful credit bureau lobby.

Credit reporting agencies say allowing you to freeze your credit for any reason will end up hurting you, by delaying your access to loans, insurance and instant credit at retail stores.

A tougher state bill giving you more rights will be introduced in Olympia in January, but the federal bill is up for another vote next week, so now's the time to make your feelings known.

You'll find links to local and federal representatives and more information at the links below.

For More Information:

Full text of proposed Federal Financial Data Protection Act (HR3997) that would preempt Washington State's Credit Freeze Law -- thomas.loc.gov. (You must click on the link to enter in a bill, and it's HR3997.)

Consumer's Union Summary of Credit Freeze Laws

List of all security breaches since the Choice Point data scandal of 2005

How to contact your U.S. Representative

How to contact your State Legislator