Your ID Has Been Compromised

No matter how careful you think you are when it comes to who gets access to your personal information, highly skilled identity thieves utilize a number of techniques to gain access to your private information. Odds are that criminals already have your data. It’s up to you to prevent them from using it and punish those who gave it to them.

Identity theft hits 1 in 4 U.S. households. Increasingly criminals are getting the information from institutions or businesses by stealing records, bribing employees who have access to these records, hacking computerized records, or simply perusing "public" records on government websites. Odds are good that your information may already be in the hands of criminals who just haven’t used it yet. New laws and programs now make it possible to render the stolen data useless and punish those who allowed it to be stolen.

Personal information has become the currency of choice for criminals because the credit system allows consumers with a good credit rating to easily set up lines of credit until fraud is detected. Thieves would rather steal an individual’s reputation than what is in his wallet. Compromised data is routinely bought and sold by individuals and organized crime through Internet chat rooms, electronic-payment systems and online casinos. The data can pop up anywhere — from Russia, where credit card numbers are ripe for the picking on Web sites, to the Middle East, where terrorist groups finance operations through ID theft, and major cities in the United States, where street gangs do the same.

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Making Stolen Data Useless To Criminals

A slew of credit monitoring and protection products promise to notify the subscriber when there has been a change in their credit report or when there appears to be suspicious activity with one of their accounts. Currently, there are over 70 identity theft services offered on the market and growing. The majority of these services are reselling credit monitoring services, which provide no preventative features. Credit monitoring does nothing to repair the damage from identity theft and like most identity theft services go into effect after an individual’s identity has already been compromised and therefore are classified as reactive, not proactive, in nature.

According to a recent independent study by Javelin Research, "The types of credit monitoring services offered by various creditors and the credit reporting agencies -simply don't work. Their services are designed to raise profits for the credit industry and have very little effectiveness, if any, in guarding our identities."

One identity theft prevention company takes a proactive approach by acting before the thieves can use your compromised data. LifeLock’s Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer Robert Maynard came up with the idea after having his identity stolen and spending seven days in jail and spending more than $30,000 to clear his good name.

The system works by only allowing the consumer who has placed the alerts the authority to utilize his or her own credit. The alerts ensure that if anyone tries to do anything with your credit report, such as get new credit, change your address, expand credit lines, open a checking account, get insurance, utilities, or anything else, the financial institution must call you directly for your approval before anything happens.

The Javelin study showed, "To prevent Identity theft, fraud alerts clearly trump credit monitoring."

As far as can be determined, LifeLock is the only data security company to take this common sense approach. Todd Davis, the company's CEO is so confident the system works that he publishes his own Social Security number on the company website. To learn more about fraud alerts and the LifeLock system click here

Stopping The Breaches At Their Source

10 million Americans will become victims of identity theft this year. In fact you are 26 times more likely to be a victim of ID Theft than a violent crime. If your identity is stolen you are not likely to know who the thieves are or ever see them face trial. Only one in 700 identity thieves are ever brought to justice.

Clearly, if a government agency or business entity fails to protect your information or is somehow party to the breach that revealed information they had filed on you, there is a definite liability question whether it be a institution, an employer, a credit bureau or the government. Even if an employee or contractor committed an illegal act and revealed your data, there may still be a liability issue for the employer of that person or their services.

In several cases to date, private institutions and government agencies that hold and distribute this data have been found to be liable for the inappropriate or illegal release of private information and data, and the havoc it may wreak on the identity theft victim and their family. Last year, a Virginia woman whose Social Security number was stolen by a temporary employee at a hospital where the ID theft victim gave birth won $351,000 in damages after a trial.

On the other hand, if someone stole the information from your trash or you somehow failed to protect your critical personal data like credit card or bank account information, family history or you gave a password away to an acquaintance who then defrauded you, the liability of the institutions or businesses involved may be greatly lessened. You are expected to protect your personal information as well.

Am I due compensation?
Yes! If a government agency, corporation or individual has exposed you to the threat of identity theft you may be due compensation. Recent court cases have shown that when your information is exposed due to the negligence, error or willful act of an institution, government agency, business, or employer who maintains such critical records -or through the actions of an employee/contractor for the institution, business or government agency - you may be due compensation. Please submit your claim Your case will be reviewed by an attorney specifically interested in matters pertaining to personal Identity Theft.