The thing that really gets me about all this is that the credit reporting industry (largely Experian, Equifax and Transunion) is completely opposed to this idea of security freezes (again, even though they’ve largely lost this battle in 23 other states) even though all they are doing is making money off of our private information. Yes, credit is very useful for consumers and the economy alike. I’m not renouncing credit, but these companies want to refuse us access to our own information (access to ‘block’ it) while they sell it to the highest bidder (ever gotten a pre-approved credit card?) and if we get the gall to actually fight for something like a security freeze, they want us to pay for it (in some states unfortunately, you have to).
I hope our Governor and the Legislature finally get to pass this much needed bill. And after we’re done with the problem of financial identity theft (for now anyway), we should start worrying about medical identity theft which is another huge problem that will require much more involved solutions than a credit freeze.
so your ultimate solution is of course the newest model of mandatorially implanted Mark of the Beast 666 microchip from the Verichip Corporation. Digital Angel they call it.
You can stuff it in my cold dead arm!
Thanks for posting this. A while back I was trying to put a “freeze” on my info, when I realized that because I live in MA, I couldn’t.
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It makes no sense that I can’t protect myself from identity theft, especially in this day and age with easy access to personal/critical data.
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BTW, this has little to do with Digital Angel as far as I can see. I just want to be able to secure my personal data. If people want to use more sophisticated technology to identify themselves, fine, that’s a choice that you can make. Right now we have nothing, no protection whatsoever.
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the solution of Satanic microchips.
HR 3997 the federal version of the you can’t freeze your credit bill.
and I believe that the bill was put on hold in the House. Hopefully it will never be passed, but my understanding is that the provision which would have affected state laws regarding personal credit/data freeze, has been removed from the bill.
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I just want MA laws to allow me to protect my personal data. That’s all.
Amusing fact: Company data–sales figures, market share, that sort of thing–are “proprietary” and belong to the company they describe. Personal data are also proprietary–but they don’t belong to the person.
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Truly, we have the best legal system money can buy.
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Anyway, a bank that extends a mortgage without confirming the identity of the borrower should be completely liable for all the consequences of its actions. If they were, identity theft would virtually disappear overnight.
Yeah, you said it first. So, let’s just say it: They’re liable. We arent. It is done.
If they think they should give money to somebody, it’s up to them to take that risk. If they don’t know who they are giving it to, how is that our problem? It shouldn’t be anyone else’s problem if they don’t get paid back. If they aren’t sure that they are giving money to someone who will give it back to them, they shouldn’t give it. If they don’t want to take that risk, they don’t have to. No one forces them to give money to anybody.
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This is just one more place where we underestimate our power.
That burden always has, and always should, lie with the merchant. The merchant has the opportunity to check the sig on the back of the card. The merchant has the opportunity to notice that the dude’s name probably isn’t “Jill”. The merchant has the opportunity to notice that this person is buying a huge number of power tools with no common project or theme, and no building materials. The merchant has the opportunity to make sure that the day’s worth of credit card slips aren’t lying around the restaurant waiting for a busboy to help himself.
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Where the credit card companies take risks is bankruptcy — and that risk was reduced a few years ago when the GOP made it far more difficult to declare bankruptcy. Credit card theft isn’t a big problem, because the law requires credit cards to cover all but the first $50 (which most also cover). The greater problem is with bank cards/ATM cards (no protection) and with credit reports themselves (weak protection), and with connecting social security numbers to other data in non-social security related functions (health care, universities, businesses, etc.).