Identity Theft Gets a Boost!

Congress should move quickly to allow businesses that protect consumers from identity theft to continue doing so.

An article in the on-line magazine Wired.com reported that Federal District Judge Andrew Guilford ruled the protection offered by LifeLock, and presumably other companies that provide a similar service, was illegal. Reading the article could give one the idea, at least in your correspondent's mind, that the judge might have wanted to protect credit-reporting agencies from competition. In doing so, he exposed millions of consumers to identity theft.

We live in an era in which businesses; including credit-reporting agencies, “routinely” lose critical identifying data belonging to millions of consumers. We have seen far too many stories about a single breach exposed information on millions of consumers. In light of that fact, Judge Guilford’s ruling seems far worse than "unfortunate."

To cite a personal experience, two companies have purchased me credit-monitoring services: one for two years; one for a single year. They did so after they, or a vendor they used, lost or compromised my personal data. While not detailed here, I did give Senator Diane Feinstein some details in a letter— regardless of your experience, I hope you will write an equivalent letter demanding action.

Please note that, so far at least, my experience pales before the nightmares suffered by tens of thousands of identity theft victims. Some have suffered financial losses following an identity theft; others have spent hundreds of hours trying recover from identity theft; many have lost both money and hours.

The fact that Experian was the plaintiff in the case particularly galled me. A couple of years ago, two of the three primary credit-reporting agencies finally agreed that I had not resided in my former wife's “post office box”! This was after several years of on and off effort on my part; albeit, probably not more than twenty or thirty hours in total.

The third credit bureau insisted that I had indeed once lived in that 6 x 6 x 18 inch space; they had verification of my residence there! Moreover, the website of that bureau provided no reasonable means to correct their error. The address presumably remains on my credit report; I have not checked in a couple of years. Hence, you can imagine my sense outrage at seeing Judge Guilford take the side of Experian, and credit bureaus generally, in the case at hand.

As the article appeared in May, 2007, Congress may have moved to correct the law, called FACTA, so that businesses may once again protect the privacy of consumers.

In the likely case that Congress has not yet acted, please consider sending your Senators and member of the House a polite email asking them to address this issue during the current session.

Clicking on the title of this post will take you to the article at Wired.com.