Curiouser and Curiouser! on identity-fraud

Owning our identities

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 10:40:33 +0100

Well here's an idea:

Lets take this further. One of the most awful aspects of identity theft is the damage it does to your credit rating. You can have a hundred fraudulent transactions taken from your bank account in a day, but you cant repair your credit rating or your reputation for years. This can be devastating if it stops you getting a mortgage or a credit card. So why shouldnt we start charging credit rating agencies for the information they gather about us? If we all got shares in a credit-rating agency in return for our data, we could vote out directors who refuse to modernise, and get a better service. [Camilla Cavendish

The full article is well worth reading.

Wakeup

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:35:14 +0100

If you live in the US you really need to wake up and smell the coffee right now:

Now, if you're a little confused as to why Congress would be so attracted to the idea of replacing effective state laws on identity theft with weak federal ones, then you just haven't been paying much attention to how your government works. It is of course the banks, databrokers, and other financial institutions whose indifferent security practices keep exposing our personal information that don't want to have to notify us when it happens. And it is of course the credit bureaus, credit card companies, etc. who don't want us to be able to freeze our credit files just because identity thieves might have our information. So we're talking about a lot of big companies with a lot of influence -- i.e., money -- that they can spread around our nation's capital. -- Ed Foster

All kinds of bad legislation gets passed by US law makers on a seemingly daily basis but this one looks set to cause misery on a new scale. And of course by making sure that nobody hears anything you can expect that misery to go on for a long time.

CATCH

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:49:53 +0100

This morning I read a report on identity fraud and detection methods (and in particular the work of a San Diego based team called CATCH) by freelancer Martha Baer. It makes for depressing reading.

Martha's sources in law enforcement paint a picture of a crime escalating totally out of control. The reasons are many including the ease with which the crime is committed, the international nature of much of it, the weakness of the law, and the prevalance of repeat offenders.

In particular while the CATCH team that Martha follows sounds like it's making impressive inroads it is best compared to the guys who catch drug trafficking mules; they're a dime-a-dozen.

What's clear in my mind is that the locus of control in identity transactions is wrong today. It's currently spread across the many hundreds of databases in which my data resides and the financial institutions that seem to have no interest in protecting me. We need to move to a system where I, the individual, am in direct control over how my identity data is used.

This is exactly what PAOGA is spearheading. We'll be launching our new website and beta product in a few weeks. Small steps, but steps leading in the right direction for you and I.