Privacy Digest

White House ID Theft Plan Soft on Industry, Critics Say - The NewStandard: "As stolen identities undercut the assets and privacy of Americans, public-interest groups say the White House's new strategy to combat identity theft ignores core challenges of securing data in the Digital Age.

To privacy-rights and consumer groups, identity fraud reflects structural vulnerabilities, as technology casts sensitive records into more unknown hands. In response, groups are calling for much-tighter controls than those the White House proposes on how corporations and government agencies harvest personal information.

In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recorded approximately 250,000 complaints of identity-theft fraud annually. A survey study by the data-analysis group Javelin Strategy and Research estimated total adult victims in the United States at nearly nine million in 2006, with the value of the fraud totaling $56.6 billion. Common violations, perpetrated by individuals as well as organized groups, range from credit-card forgery to assuming a new identity to cover up other crimes.

This week, a multi-agency White House task force led by the FTC and the Department of Justice released a plan to combat identity theft. Proposed measures include establishing national 'breach-notification' requirements - procedures for notifying consumers when databases are broken into or improperly used - as well as a centralized 'National Identity Theft Law Enforcement Center' to coordinate criminal investigations.

But overall, the report is light on explicit recommendations for new regulations on companies and agencies that handle sensitive information. Rather, it emphasizes further monitoring of the problem, such as studying how companies use social-security numbers.

Groups that have long tracked identity-theft issues say the plan shies away from glaring systemic problems.

David Sohn, counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), said the nation needs a 'baseline privacy law' to replace the lattice of state and federal regulations that currently guard consumer data.

CDT and other groups are calling for national reforms to replace what they see as an outmoded federal regulatory regime. Currently, the Privacy Act of 1974 places limits on the exposure and management of records in government databases. And some companies that handle personal data, such as credit-reporting firms, are subject to various consumer-protection statutes, including safeguards for data-quality and confidentiality."

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