An acquaintance recently sent me an email describing an offer for insurance (of all things) to protect my identity. I take this issue pretty seriously because like a lot of Americans, I’ve worked long hours over a number of years and don’t want other persons to use my “good name” without my knowledge and consent. Also, I don't part with my hard earned money easily. We traded a few barbs after I made the point that when credit card providers bestow customers with a product that has known safeguards that could easily be implemented and fail to pass on an improved product one after a reasonable amount of time, we should seriously consider it to be “defective”. The solutions are known (and have been known for some time), and are available now, the hardware and software is cheap and easy to find. The solutions remain un-implemented.
http://www.biometricgroup.com/in_the_news/anchor_desk.html
Needless to say, I’ve got no intentions of purchasing so called “identity insurance” from some company when it’s easier (and cheaper) to be careful with my private information and check my statements on a regular basis. There’s no such thing as 100% safety out there anyway and insurance, if you can afford it, is not as good as prevention. Besides, most credit card providers waive charges made on fraudulent purchases if they are reported in a timely manner.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22identity+theft+insurance%22
So if persons are motivated to use your identity continue to damage your reputation as a “loyal and trustworthy bill payer” or good citizen what is a person to do? Not much. In fact, more often than not, no one is actually charged with a crime or apprehended. There’s no one around to blame, unless you like the sounds of voice response units or pre-recorded menus as you contact your creditors and fix what damage you happen to know about at the time. The goods are used by the perpetrators before the long arm of the law catches up with them and when it does, these scoundrels merely skip out on bail and assume someone else’s identity. The story continues… luckily there is some help.
http://www.ncdot.org/DMV/other_services/licensetheft/identityTheft.html
I don’t like the idea of the next wave of terrorists having easy targets when it comes to getting into the country and using the names of honest citizens either. Most legislators don’t want to touch this issue because certain groups and individuals oppose just about every safeguard that can be automated (biometric authentication). All of these folks mention the costs of implementing such safeguards or perceived loss of privacy but none of them reference the costs of doing nothing. Since when has the world stopped on its axis when it comes to processing transactions? Good or bad, things are not going to stay the same so why make it easy for a “common thug” to take advantage of our economy or wealth? What about the poor bloke who loses his civil liberties when a thug uses his identity?
I’ve contacted the Attorney General. A while back (more than a year ago) in some public service announcements the man stated that he was championing efforts to reduce identity theft. I am still waiting for something to change that truly benefits North Carolinians. Yes, he’s paid the subject some extensive “lip service” and provided some of the same tips and information that can be found at other sources but how many North Carolinians have to lose their identities (or worse) before he addresses the issue with the companies that distribute and encourage the products that are so easily abused?
http://www.ncdoj.com/consumerprotection/cp_idtheft.jsp
My point here is that many constituents (approx 286,000 North Carolinians) don’t need to view bureaucrats on their TV to develop an understanding of the problems with identity theft. They need to know what solutions industry has to offer and the companies that provide customers with financial instruments (credit/debit cards) to process transactions need encouragement (or mandates, deadlines) to get them to implement them.
Identity theft provides an “economy” for criminals who have to live “off the grid”. The fraudulent purchases offer them an almost endless supply of goods that they can barter for drugs, services or to fund other illegal activities. What they have no immediate use for they sell to whomever they can. They for all practical purposes, convert their victim’s credit card to cash in many instances. Why do we allow this to occur? If we make it harder to commit financial crimes, engage in acts of fraud or avoid paying sales taxes, isn't this in everyone's best interest?
For as long as certain (credit card?) companies (or banks) provide their customers with arguably defective products (or fail to require biometric authentication on the majority of financial transactions) why shouldn’t they be responsible for all (not just some) the costs of the fraud that are conducted with them? Shouldn’t citizens be able to take these companies to courts of law and demand that they be compensated for the lousy products that are circulating today? Obviously, that’s not the answer either, because these companies would only pass on these extra costs of doing business (with trial lawyers) down to their customers. This same strategy is what has wrecked the healthcare business with rising costs.
What we North Carolinians need to do is educate fellow constituents, government and businesses about biometric authentication technologies and demonstrate to them that biometric authentication has value in their processes. Preventing fraud or identity theft is “good business” and we (North Carolinian’s) must become more receptive to dealing with companies that protect customers from identity theft. The market (or customers) should provide the incentive to implement a strategy, and industry should be allowed to choose which technologies to implement. Goverment's job should be to stay out of the way of business for the most part and to prevent the misuse of information that is collected from transaction processing (many exposures exist already and could be better protected by implementing biometric authentication technologies).
No protection or strategy will ever make transaction processing perfect, but having little or no protection at all only makes identity theft available to the masses. Doing nothing would be doing wrong.
