Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine on Thursday proposed legislation that would make it easier for identity theft victims to protect their credit ratings and force companies to notify their customers after breaches of personal data.
The governor announced the credit-fraud and identity-theft initiatives alongside AARP members at the group’s Virginia chapter. Both measures, if passed by the General Assembly, would approve practices that already have been adopted by many other states and the private sector, Kaine’s spokesman Gordon Hickey said.
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Virginia agencies were required to notify residents of data breaches under a policy that went into effect in November, Hickey said. Most private companies do so as well, he said.
“This standardizes the procedure and puts it into law,” he said.
In 2005, 8.3 million Americans fell victim to identity theft; 10 percent of them paid more than$1,200 in out-of-pocket expenses due to the fraud, according to a Federal Trade Commission survey released in November.
More than 80 percent of the 1 million members of the Virginia AARP say they are worried about identity theft, State Director Bill Kallio said.
“It’s something that’s creeping up on the radar screen, they know what it could do to a lifelong good credit rating,” he said.
Under the governor’s bill, victims of identify theft could request their credit report be frozen without charge, which would prevent new credit from being issued in their names until the fraud is resolved.
Those who haven’t suffered the theft could be charged $5 per rating agency to have their credit frozen, according to Kaine’s proposal.
“It does give consumers a reasonable way to close down any transaction, even if they haven’t been a victim of identity theft,” Kallio said. “The credit freezes do cost a lot of money.”
Virginia would be the 40th state to put the measure in place, Hickey said.
By the numbers
In 2005, 8.3 million Americans fell victim to identity theft. Of those, 10 percent paid more than $1,200 in out-of-pocket expenses due to the fraud
Source: Federal Trade Commission
