like Credentials Services International and Inquiry Notification Service that cost about $25 a year, that send you a collated credit report from the principal agencies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion - three times a year. Also, when anyone applies for credit in your name, they send you a letter notifying you. I belong to two of these services, so in case one misses something I'm hoping the other one will catch it.
Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get a fraudulent entry removed from your credit report. Even if you prove something is wrong, they don't delete it. They put an asterisk next to it, and a note at the bottom that says the customer disputes this entry. How helpful.
In 2000, the government approved a bill that allows consumers and businesses to sign contracts online and know that their e-signature is just as binding as one in ink. This gives electronic signatures the legal weight of paper signatures, and makes a contract binding immediately. The law took effect on October 1, 2000, and already we have completely electronic mortgages available. I'm against the whole idea. I fear this will lead to still more identity theft. It's too easy to steal or duplicate a e-signature. Who is going to have the signature? Who is going to store it? How will they protect it?
Under the law, a digital signature could take any of a number of forms - a string of numeric code that is encrypted or thumbprints or irises read by special devices. Because of identity theft, many Florida banks currently require non-customers to leave a thumbprint when cashing a check, and some large banks in the Orlando area are taking thumbprints from all new customers. California, Texas, and Georgia are among states that require drivers to give a thumbprint or fingerprint when they come in to get or renew a license. But if you give your thumbprint to an organization and they put it in a database, and someone breaks into that database, as they will, and steals that thumbprint, are you going to go out and get another thumbprint?
Additionally, there are ways to get around fingerprints. Impostors will coat their fingers with airplane glue, which, when it dries, covers the skin's ridges and makes for useless fingerprints. Or they'll spray their fingers with clear lacquer or hair spray, which congeal in the grooves and spaces of your prints.
Maybe a system that scans your iris sounds impenetrable. But what if someone knocks you unconscious and then holds your eye in front of the scanner? What if someone points a gun at you and forces you to sit in front of the iris device?
The idea of giving thumbprints or copies of your iris raises the hackles of many people, myself included, because of the privacy issues involved. We could end up with a national identity system that tracks and monitors people, and that gets me to wondering if the cure is worse than the disease. The Internet has already irrevocably altered the nature of privacy and turned us into a culture of transparency. Why make it worse?
You have to decide at what point is your personal security coming at the expense of your privacy. E-signatures mean that you're giving out more of your identity. You have to ask why? Why do you have to surrender something else just for convenience? Why can't you wait to overnight something? Why does everything have to be instant? Instant breakfast. Instant camera. Instant mortgage. You can't wait a day? It has to happen in ten seconds?
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO
If we're serious about combating identity theft, it's going to take a federal solution, beginning with changes in the way the Social Security number is used and the free and easy access businesses have to people's credit reports. At the moment, the Social Security number has been ruined. When I was growing up, no one knew your Social Security number. Now it's everywhere, and so it's worthless for identification purposes. But it's still being used that way.
There are steps everyone can take to safeguard their own number. Whenever someone asks for your Social Security number, you ought to make sure you know who you're dealing with and that they absolutely need the number. If a business requests it to confirm your identity, ask if there's an alternative number that can be used.
But these steps aren't enough. The government needs to pass a law that will clamp down on the use of the Society Security number as a uniform