Identity Theft Resources

Your Social Security Number has become your most important identifier, because it's unique. Your SSN is the key to identity theft, so it's extremely important to protect. Because many government agencies, education institutions, and private enterprise used your SSN for your account number, it is vulnerable. While this practice is now being phased out, it’s more important than ever to make sure your SSN is protected. The California Office of Privacy Protection’s Consumer Information Sheet #4 explains about your SSN; some of the information is specific to California state law, but may serve as a guideline for other states.

http://www.oispp.ca.gov/consumer_privacy/consumer/documents/pdf/cis4english.pdf

ID Watchdog President Justin Yurek testified to the United States Congress’s House Ways and Means Committee on the importance of policies to protect Social Security Numbers.

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=6148

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse fact sheet has everything you ever wanted to know about your social security number, from the history of how the system was developed, to how it gradually became your de facto unique personal identifier, to current efforts to limit its use in order to protect against identity theft.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is one of the foremost authorities on privacy and identity theft for consumers in the United States and abroad. This is PRC’s extensive guide to what steps you can take to minimize your risk of identity theft.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17-it.htm

Mari Frank is a consumer attorney and identity theft expert. Her book “Safeguard Your Identity” is packed full with tips and advice to help protect you.

http://www.identitytheft.org/

This is Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s step-by-step guide to recovery.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17a.htm

This link is to the FTC’s extensive guide for consumers, titled “Take Charge: Fighting Back Against Identity Theft”
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/idtheft/idt04.pdf

One of the first steps to resolution is completing the FTC’s ID Theft Affidavit, a form that you will then use in communicating with creditors, courts, database brokers, and other organizations.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/resources/forms/affidavit.pdf

Attorney and Certified Privacy Expert, Mari Frank, who has testified in Congress and helped write legislation, has written a comprehensive workbook with a CD with legal letters and forms to write to various agencies to help victims recover: From Victim to Victor: A Step By Step Guide For Ending the Nightmare of Identity Theft with Foreword by Dianne Feinstein.
http://www.identitytheft.org/

You are entitled to at least one free credit report per year from each of the 3 Credit Reporting Agencies, TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. While it’s only a start, you should take advantage of this right.

http://www.ftc.gov/freereports
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

If you believe that you may be a victim of identity theft, you have the right to place free “fraud alerts” on your 3 credit reports. Initial fraud alerts last for 90 days – you can also renew them yourself for free, after the 90 day period is up, if you believe you’re still experiencing identity theft. Extended, 7-year fraud alerts require a police report and a letter to the credit bureau attaching an affidavit and identification. Below are links to the 3 Credit Reporting Agencies for information on placing fraud alerts.

http://www.experian.com/fraud
http://www.transunion.com/corporate/personal/fraudIdentityTheft/preventing/fraudAlert.page
http://www.equifax.com/answers/set-fraud-alerts/en_cp


The credit freeze is the strongest protection available for your credit reports. The freeze truly locks up your file so that no organization can pull your credit – this prevents any fraudulent financial accounts from being opened under your name. However, this also means you can’t apply for accounts or anything else that requires pulling credit, so you might consider a credit freeze only if you have reason to believe you’re actually being targeted for identity theft. Also, remember that credit freezes only apply to your credit reports – all of your other consumer reports may still be vulnerable to identity theft. Consumers Union publishes a comprehensive list of state credit freeze laws and the process to freeze your credit.
http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns//learn_more/003484indiv.html

Credit Reports, while widely publicized, represent only a very small portion of your personal information that’s maintained, shared, sold, mined, combined, and reviewed in thousands of databases around the world. These thousands of other reports are called “Specialty Reports” and contain much more of your personal information than your credit reports do. Also, because they are not as well known, they are extremely vulnerable to identity theft. You need to know what’s going on in these databases! Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has published a fact sheet about the most prominent Specialty Reports.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs6b-SpecReports.htm

While most of what you hear is about financial identity theft, criminal identity theft is a rapidly growing and potentially devastating problem. This occurs when an identity theft uses your information when committing crimes, being arrested, serving time in jail, and appearing in court. Unlike financial identity theft, it is virtually impossible to completely clear your name from criminal records. Needless to say, this can be very devastating – you need to understand Identity Theft. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has published an extensive fact sheet on criminal identity theft.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17g-CrimIdTheft.htm

The California Office of Privacy Protection has produced an extensive guide for victims of criminal identity theft. It includes a number of forms that are necessary to attempt to clear your name if you’re a California resident, and which serve as good examples for what you will need to do in other states.

http://www.oispp.ca.gov/consumer_privacy/consumer/documents/pdf/cis8englsih.pdf

Medical Identity Theft is another rapidly growing area of identity theft, also with particularly devastating consequences. Taken to an extreme, medical identity theft could literally kill you – if the thief had an operation using your name and identifying information, but the thief had a different blood type than you, the blood type in your medical records would be wrong. In an emergency situation, your records with the wrong blood type could be deadly. You need to know about medical identity theft! World Privacy Forum is a recognized pioneer in medical identity theft resources and protection. WPF’s groundbreaking 2006 report introduced the concept of medical identity theft to the world.

http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/pdf/wpf_medicalidtheft2006.pdf

This is a link to World Privacy Forum’s “Frequently Asked Questions” section for victims of medical identity theft.

http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/FAQ_medicalrecordprivacy.html

This is a link to World Privacy Forum’s extensive guide to protecting yourself from medical identity theft and what to do if it does happen to you.

http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/medidtheft_consumertips.html

Identity thieves don’t just victimize the living – identity theft of the deceased is also a large problem. This is the California Office of Privacy Protection’s fact sheet.

http://www.oispp.ca.gov/consumer_privacy/consumer/documents/pdf/cis3cenglish.pdf

Because everybody uses the internet so much these days, for paying bills, shopping, communicating with friends and colleagues, and many other activities, much of your personal information is stored on personal computers and sent back and forth on the internet. This information is vulnerable to identity thieves – take steps to protect it. The California Office of Privacy Protection has produced a guide to help you safeguard the security of your personal computer.

http://www.oispp.ca.gov/consumer_privacy/consumer/documents/html/cis12english.asp

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has published a fact sheet on online shopping, and how to be safe doing it.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs23-shopping.htm

OnGuardOnline.gov provides practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information.

http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/computer-security.aspx

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations.
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is the global pan-industrial and law enforcement association focused on eliminating the fraud and identity theft that result from phishing, pharming and email spoofing of all types.
http://www.antiphishing.org