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House Legislation Would Crack Down On SSN Thieves...EXCEPT NOT

Anne Broache from CNet has the story : At 56 pages (PDF) , the latest effort is far lengthier and more prescriptive but includes many of the same provisions. It was introduced Monday by Reps. Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.) and Sam Johnson (R-Texas), who lead

GAO: Data Breaches Rarely Lead To ID Theft

"Yep, breaches have no impact whatsoever. Trust me on this..." The Government Accountability Office released a report yesterday stating that it was difficult to link data breaches to confirmed cases of identity theft. The GAO also recommended that agencies

David Bach on Protecting Yourself From Identity Theft

Financial author and columnist David "Finish Rich" Bach has followed up his November column on identity theft with some more useful discussion, particularly around the ease with which thieves can utilize a Social Security number, name, and address to

Fidelity Data Breach, or When Employees Go Bad

The breach of 2.3 million customer records by a former Fidelity National employee is a perfect example of how a person can do everything possible to protect themselves from being hit with identity theft or fraud, and STILL get endangered through no fault

Credit Bureaus Cause Identity Theft And Undermine Our Economy

Crossposted at Private Intelligence . Feel free to comment here or there . USA TODAY has a great (if unintentionally unflattering) look at the efforts by the bureaus' lobbyists to stop states from adopting credit freezes : When this trend began to gather

Does Posting Employees' Salaries Lead To Identity Theft?

Editor & Publisher has posted a few interesting stories recently about local media outlets posting--or pushing to post--the salaries of state employees online. There's a case in Michigan that's causing a lot of drama, and now there's a similar push

Identity Theft And The New Immigration Bill

Rather than delve into the morally thorny issue as to whether or not it's right to grant amnesty to undocumented workers, I want to address a serious part of the immigration debate that often goes unmentioned--how the black-market demand for cheap labor

The Politics Of Credit Freezes

The Washington Post's Brian Krebs put out a great article on Wednesday detailing the long, hard struggle to pass credit freeze legislation across the country. Krebs details how hard the credit and finance industries fight bills in each state, preying

FTC "Proof Positive" Conference, Day 2

Work has been crazy lately, so I didn't get a chance to recap the second day of the "Proof Positive" conference. It wasn't as packed as the first, but here are some highlights: There was an excellent discussion about the differing attitudes of nations

Defeating Dumpster Diving For Data

InformationWeek's Patricia Keefe lambasts companies who carelessly dispose of information : You might think that today, only someone living under a rock would be unacquainted with the perils of identity theft, and that most people - certainly your employees

FBI Is FUBAR On Fraud

Originally Posted At Private Intelligence . Feel Free To Comment Here Or There. When you have a Justice Department (and I use the first word loosely) that is obssessed with nonexistent cases of voter fraud , spying on Americans without cause , and generally

Why Outsourcing Leads To Data Breaches, Part Deux

Techdirt has reported that ACS, the company responsible for losing data on 2.9 million people, apparently has a long and inglorious history of such mistakes: This company clearly has a problem with protecting personal information, but it doesn't appear

Georgia Health Contractor Loses Data On 2.9 Million People

This is exactly how identity theft happens: A computer disk containing Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal data on 2.9 million residents of Georgia has been lost, according to the state's Department of Community Health. The CD, which

CardCops' Dan Clements and MSNBC's Bob Sullivan Combine Their Powers For Good

MSNBC's consumer/security reporting superhero Bob Sullivan has profiled Dan Clements , CEO of CardCops on his excellent blog, "The Red Tape Chronicles." Highlights from the read: Thieves openly trade stolen data in secret chat rooms, where the numbers

Identity Theft News Roundup: Cyveillance, Protection Tips, And Credit vs. Debit

Several interesting ID-theft-related docs made their way to my desk in recent days, so I'll just summarize them here: Cyveillance just put out a new identity theft and fraud report analyzing the state of the proverbial nation. Among their findings: In