US ID theft bill seeks redress for victims
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Senators aim to tighten cybercrime law Senators on both sides of the House have backed a bill that would allow American victims of identity theft to seek restitution for the money and time they waste repairing their credit histories.â¦
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Little by little, a weapon against identity theft is gaining currency - but few people in the United States know about it. It's called the security freeze, and it lets individuals block access to their credit reports.
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One of the most common forms of identity theft involves illegal immigrants using fraudulent Social Security numbers.
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U.S. retailers and police called on  Congress on Thursday to require online auction sites such as  eBay to post the serial numbers of items for sale to help crack  down on gangs of professional shoplifters.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Congress can help protect residents against identity theft by passing a data breach notification bill that would also require companies to use reasonable security practices, officials from cybersecurity vendor Symantec said Tuesday. Robert Clyde, Symantec's vice president of technology, called on Congress to pass a data breach notification bill that would require organizations to report data breaches when there's a reasonable risk of identity theft. U.S. lawmakers introduced about a dozen bills requiring data breach notification after a series of breaches in early 2005, but legislation stalled largely over committee jurisdictional squabbles. About 30 states have passed breach notification laws, most of them since 2005. U.S. lawmakers have introduced four data breach notification bills since January. Private companies want one standard they can follow instead of dozens, Clyde said. "Having every state do their own data breach law ... starts to get out of control real quick," he said. "You put a huge burden on companies." In the last couple of years, Symantec has seen a change in cyber attacks, prompting the need for legislation. Gone are the days when attackers created viruses or worms simply for bragging rights; now, the majority of cyberattacks are targeted at stealing money, Clyde said. In many cases, the attacks are done with stealth in mind, with the criminals hoping to milk credit card accounts for months, he said. Often, ID thieves will take $5 or $10 from a credit card account every month, and most people won't notice the small charges, Clyde added. "The motive [of hackers] has changed from show-off to taking money," Clyde said during a briefing in Washington, D.C. Symantec called on Congress to pass a data breach bill that would include language requiring organizations to deploy standard security protections. "We'd like to see legislation be more proactive," said Tiffany Olson Jones, senior regional manager for North and Latin American government relations at Symantec. Part of the problem with passing a bill last year is that some of the legislation became too expansive and included several privacy measures, Clyde said. A simple data breach bill that focuses only on security breaches should have the best chance of passage, he said. Symantec endorsed the Data Accountability and Trust Act, introduced earlier this month by Representatives Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, and Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican. The bill, in addition to requiring breach notifications to affected customers, would authorize the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up data privacy requirements for businesses, including requirements that they have vulnerability assessments and policies for disposing of obsolete data. After a company reports a data breach, the FTC would conduct an audit of its security practices, and the bill would require data brokers to disclose the information they hold on individuals and allow individuals to correct wrong information. Symantec also called on Congress to pass an antispyware bill. Several ways that spyware steals information, such as keystroke logging, isn't expressly prohibited in other cybersecurity laws, Clyde said.
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QUINCY, Mass. - John Russo has been a victim of identity theft. So when he was asked to fork over a photo ID just to be seated at an IHOP pancake restaurant, he flipped.
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U.S. lawmakers wrote to regulators on Monday expressing concern that some banks are processing unsigned checks used by fraudsters seeking to drain money from the accounts of vulnerable people like the elderly.
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Federal officials said yesterday that Tuesday's raids on meatpacking plants in six states uncovered a "disturbing front" in the battle against illegal immigration -- identity theft as a tool to obtain employment.
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Attorney Eric J. Sinrod says the federal government is finally taking steps to combat  identity theft.
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The cost to consumers for helping to secure America became clearer yesterday as a coalition of state groups tallied the bill for implementing the Real ID Act and federal officials divulged the price that some of its workers must pay for new smart cards.
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Identity theft victims are also losing more money and getting less of it back, research shows.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Consumers are doing a better job of guarding against identity thieves, yet most still give out too many personal details, making themselves vulnerable to becoming one of the millions of victims each year, according to a survey
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The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would increase jail time for identity thieves and other fraudulent Web users who register sites under false identities.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Consumers are bombarded with warnings about identity theft. Publicized threats range from mailbox thieves and lost laptops to the higher-tech methods of e-mail scams and corporate data invasions.
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Not compulsion - sign here to end the pain... "Various forms of coercion" could be used to accelerate the rollout of ID cards, the idea being that ID cards will remain 'voluntary' for as long as possible, while not having an ID card will become more and more uncomfortable. This, precisely what the government has intended to do all along, is stated baldly in an Identity &amp; Passport Service leak cited by the Sunday People.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - An identity theft task force created by U.S. President George Bush has recommended nationally accepted police reports that victims could fill out online, and a change in U.S. law that would require those convicted of such crimes to pay victims for the time used to clear up identity problems. The President's Identity Theft Task Force, which met Tuesday, also recommended that U.S. agencies examine whether their use of Social Security numbers is necessary and called on an interagency working group on ID theft to develop best practices for data security in government. The U.S. government needs to lead by example in protecting consumers from ID theft, Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said. "Identity theft truly is a direct assault on our citizens and attacks the very foundation of the information economy," Majoras said in a joint press conference with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The task force's recommendations are an interim list, with a full plan of how to attack ID theft to be released in November. But the recommendations released Tuesday are steps U.S. agencies and other groups can take immediately, Gonzales said. About 4 percent of U.S. residents are ID theft victims every year, Gonzales said. Bush established the task force because of "the prevalence of this crime, combined with the lingering burdens and effects on victims," Gonzales said. "When we look at the problem of identity theft, we are reminded that the same technological advances that have improved our lives have also given new and broad opportunities to criminals, including identity thieves," he added. "As with any crime, victims suffer feelings of violation and stress, but in these cases, victims have the added burden of essentially cleaning up the mess that the identity thieves leave behind." Among the task force's recommendations: -- The U.S. Congress should change laws to require that defendants convicted of ID theft pay victims for the time they spent clearing up the mess. -- The U.S. should adopt a universal police report that ID theft victims can fill out online, print out and take to their local police station. -- The U.S. Office of Personnel Management should speed up its review of the use of Social Security numbers by federal agencies. -- U.S. agencies should work with experts to find other ways of authenticating people's identities, such as biometrics. -- U.S. agencies should develop better plans to disclose data breaches to potential victims. In May, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had a laptop and hard drive stolen from an analyst's home, and the agency took about two weeks to report the theft to the public. Majoras and Gonzales didn't talk about the VA case, but members of Congress have called for the VA to do a better job of notifying potential victims.
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NEW HAVEN, Connecticut  - As many U.S. cities and states arrest illegal immigrants in raids and toughen laws against them, a Connecticut city is offering to validate them under a controversial, first-in-the-nation ID card program.