Sacramento Summit Zeroes in on Identity Theft
Sacramento Summit Zeroes in on Identity Theft
KSBS-TV Channel 5
Mar 1, 2005
Businesses, state and local law enforcement, and consumer groups
gathered in Sacramento Tuesday to brainstorm ways to curb identity
theft.
The governor’s first "Summit on Identity Theft Solutions" was
aimed at coming up with new strategies to keep our personal information
private.
"Is it legislation we need? Is it a greater partnership with
everyone, including businesses, to securitize data?" asked Charlene
Zettle of the California Department of Consumer Affairs. "What can be
done to develop technology to set up firewalls?"
While California has some of the strictest privacy protection
laws on the books, privacy advocates were at the summit Tuesday calling
for tougher regulations.
"It’s high time that companies that buy, trade, and sell in our private data should be held accountable," said Richard Holober of the Consumer Federation of California.Security breaches have made recent headlines. Data warehouser
ChoicePoint revealed it had given fake businesses personal information
about 150,000 people. Bank of America announced it lost the backup
tapes containing the financial information of more than a million
customers. Anissa Yates of the California Bankers Association looked
for the silver lining.
"Both Bank of America and federal officials who worked on the
case all agree that none of the accounts had been accessed
fraudulently, so they did a great job of monitoring it and keeping
those accounts safe," Yates said.
The banking industry would like to see stiffer penalties for those who commit identity theft.
By Ann Notarangelo