[Dataloss] long term effects of data loss

[Beth Givens]

You are absolutely right.

There's a terrible loophole in the current law, Fair Credit Reporting Act as it was amended by FACTA. And that is that ONLY bona fide id theft victims can place an "extended fraud alert" on their 3 credit reports. The extended alert is for 7 years. One has to have a police report and provide a copy to the 3 bureaus before they will establish the 7 year alert.

So people who are affected by security breaches can only place an "initial" alert of 90 days. The careful and savvy ones will keep renewing it each 90 days which is a pain.  The law needs to be changed to enable ANYONE to have an extended alert, and in fact, to heck with the 7 year alert, it should be without end.

The best thing for people to do is to take advantage of the credit freeze if they are in a state that has such a law.

Beth Givens

-----Original message-----
From: George Toft george at myitaz.com
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 10:51:33 -0700
To: dataloss at attrition.org
Subject: [Dataloss] long term effects of data loss

> I am wondering about the long-term effects of record loss.  It seems to 
> me that all a thief needs to do is wait a year or two to use the 
> information - after all, you can't change your SSN, Birth Date, and are 
> probably not changing your name, so the info is good for years to come.
> 
> My thinking is that people tend to forget about the fraud alerts, which 
> only last 90 days.  Maybe they renew them a couple times.  After a year 
> or so, the thief should be able to act on the data and perhaps 1/2 will 
> be effective.
> 
> Thoughts?  Enlightenment?
> -- 
> George Toft, CISSP, MSIS
> My IT Department
> www.myITaz.com
> 480-544-1067
> 
> Confidential data protection experts for the financial industry.
> _______________________________________________
> Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss at attrition.org)
> http://attrition.org/errata/dataloss/
> 
> 

Beth Givens
Director
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
(619) 298-3396
www.privacyrights.org
bgivens at privacyrights.org