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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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February 2nd, 2009

unixronin: Hanover Fiste from Heavy Metal (Hanover Fiste)
Monday, February 2nd, 2009 03:23 pm

Via [livejournal.com profile] mazianni:

There are obvious steps that credit companies could take which really would reduce the risk of identity theft – such as taking further measures to verify identity, reducing sales of personal data, using PINs, etc.  However, credit companies won’t support measures which reduce their own profits.  “Identity theft could be made as obsolete a crime as cattle rustling or high-seas piracy,” reported MONEY Magazine several years ago.  “…[It's] now possible to request a freeze on your credit report, stopping anyone from granting new credit without your approval.  Why isn’t this brutally simple and effective solution more widespread?  Simply put, it disrupts the free flow of credit information on which consumer lenders and data sellers depend.”

When credit companies play both sides of the game, there are reduced incentives for them to build secure systems.  Rather, they have found a way to profit from crime.  By fighting consumer protection measures and selling personal data, credit companies increase consumers’ risk of identity theft.  As long as credit companies can scare enough people into paying them for “protection,” they can actually make money from the results of their own recklessness – thus passing the costs of identity theft on to consumers or merchants, and reducing or even eliminating financial incentives for genuine, systematic improvements.

(Emphasis mine.)

In other news:

(Oops.  Rendition article link fixed.)