Bill Introduced to Congress Would Allow ID Theft Restitution

verybadradio writes with an article at News.com about a bill introduced into Congress that would allow citizens who have been victimized by identity theft to seek repayment for the money and time spent repairing their credit history. The bill was introduced by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. "Last year, 8.4 million Americans were victims of identity theft, and many were left with a bad credit report, which takes months or years to repair, the lawmakers said ... The bill would also eliminate a requirement that the loss resulting from damage to a victim's computer must exceed $5,000 for prosecution; make it a felony to use spyware or keyloggers to damage 10 or more computers; and expand the definition of cybercrime to include extortion schemes that threaten to damage or access confidential information on a computer."

Comments

Wow...

[DragonPup]

...a cyber-crime bill that seems to be actually useful. Did we step into Bizarro America?

Re:Hmm

[Nom du Keyboard]

It all sounds good except this line makes me a bit nervous:

and expand the definition of cybercrime to include extortion schemes that threaten to damage or access confidential information on a computer.

Would threatening to expose a security flaw in a server or website unless it was patched open you up to prosecution under cybercrime laws then? I know that's already fairly shaky ground from a legal standpoint, but would this make it even worse?

Would this apply to the RIAA and MediaSentry/SafeNet breaking into private individuals computers?

Now if only...

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Now if only the penalties for stealing a person's identity, money, and ruining their credit history for years could match the penalty for having a certain flowering plant in your pocket, maybe the court system wouldn't be such a joke.

Years too late

[angryrobot]

I was the victim of identity theft about 6 years ago. It took me literally 2 years to clear my name. That's 2 years of making long distance phone calls, tracking down the right people, emailing, photocopying birth certificates and licenses, making police reports, etc, etc. All the while I was looked at with suspicion and I basically had to prove my innocence!

Whose fault was it that my identity was stolen? That would be the credit bureaus and the credit card companies that allowed it to happen, not me. It is their system that is at fault for allowing people to steal identities so easily. So why am I responsible to clean up their mess? If I have marks on my credit report, I should be able to tell the bureaus and that should be the end of it. I think restitution is the least they can do.

Re:Years too late

[jav1231]

Agreed. I can't for the life of me understand why when ID theft is identified your credit score isn't immediately returned to the state it was in on the date the theft is pinpointed. THAT should be in this bill.

This is the WRONG approach

[erroneus]

The real problem is that, as very well predicted, the use of social security numbers for anything other than social security will lead to all sorts of problems. The fact that a person's identity is essentially just this number and that the credit game has become an entrenched part of commerce and culture, they [the people behind the illegal use of social security numbers -- yes, it's illegal -- law was written to prevent this and everyone, including and especially the IRS has ignored it] have created a situation for which "they" should be held liable. Instead, they create the mess and we are somehow responsible for cleaning up the messes. And now with bills like this, the idea that "we" are responsible for when THEIR credit and identity systems are abused and used against us... that "we" can somehow prevent it from happening and it's our responsibility.

The abuse of SSNs and the credit system at large needs to be dismantled or severely reformed in such a way that the creators of the problem are liable for the problems it causes. As it stands, they can buy and sell "your information" because it's not your data... it's theirs... they collected it! But when it's abused and affects your life, YOU are responsible. How is that appropriate? NO. This bill is VERY wrong. The bill should assign liability to the parties responsible for creating the mess. This is just further effort to assign the liability of the SSN and credit industry to people who may not even be willing participants!

Oh Not This Again

[mpapet]

These issues have been plaguing Credit companies

1. Your premise is wrong. The banks DO NOT assume the costs of fraud. Merchants absorb all of the cost of fraud and pay the bank a penalty too. The costs are shifted to consumers through higher prices. Bottom line: The Association banks benefit greatly from fraud.

2. The bill in question is the wrong way to address the issue. The card associations have a solution to the problem except they won't implement it because it cuts into their fraud revenue and the costs are much higher per-card than dumb plastic/mag-stripe. The standard is called EMV. It solves 98% of fraud issues. Today. The other 2% I'll blame on bad coding.

Re:Oh Not This Again

[dgatwood]

Credit card number theft is almost an insignificant issue. I've had unknown charges occur on my credit card, and in one of those cases, the card company contacted me. The other one only required a simple phone call. I'm not sure how they got the numbers---one of those cards had only been used once at CostCo---but it happens. Either way, it didn't cost me a dime.

This is about identity theft---stealing enough information to obtain credit cards of your own in someone else's name, then racking up thousands of dollars of debt. EMV doesn't solve any fraud issues because most identity theft is either A. caused by somebody giving out information too willingly to someone who really doesn't need it, or B. caused by somebody who should have been trustworthy not taking care of the data that they retain. EMV won't help either of those situations. (For people who aren't aware, EMV is a smart card system for credit cards. AFAIK, EMV also won't really solve card number theft, since internet purchases have to be made the old-fashioned way unless you just happen to be willing to buy a reader for your computer....)

The only thing that will really solve identity theft is making credit card companies and credit agencies fully responsible for every penny of losses due to identity theft. This law is exactly backwards and should not be passed. The reality is, we wouldn't have identity theft problems if those companies were held liable for losses. You would apply for a credit card, and they would make phone calls to your last known telephone number, give you some code number, and ask you to call a 1-800 number and enter that code in order to complete the request. The fact that they don't do even the most basic checks to verify the validity of a CC request is proof positive that they are content to let merchants and individuals bear the brunt of their own incompetence.

I've never had my identity stolen, but if it happened to me, the first thing I'd do is hire a lawyer to sue every reporting agency that the CC company contacted for credit history information. If the reporting agency were responsible, they would have contacted me and asked for authorization before releasing that information. As far as I'm concerned, a credit reporting agency should not have the right to retain data on me nor to release that data to anyone without my explicit permission. That means checking signatures against known signatures on file, contacting me at known prior addresses/phone numbers, etc. Then, I would follow that by suing the credit card company for similarly failing to properly research the request. When it was all over, my credit history would still be screwed, but at least I'd have gotten enough money out of the dirty scumbags that I wouldn't have to care.