The first step in prevention is teaching your child and family about child identity theft so he or she can protect valuable information. Teaching children about early detection makes them a part of the team of those noticing identity theft clues. A good starting point is obtaining a free credit report for your child, reviewing their computer procedures, reviewing safe texting and cell phone procedures, and teaching them that it is okay to say no to the release of personal information. The last step is working with the community to defeat this crime against children.
Beginning is simple: for the next thirty days, tell yourself that you are going to notice personal information red flags. Does your doctor’s office ask you for personal and medical information where others can hear it? Does your child’s classroom have information about them posted on the wall? Does your child’s teacher lock up student information records they keep? Does your school do background checks on custodian personnel?
What protection does your community provide children? Do you insist on safeguards for foster children? Does your police department have someone trained and assigned to child identity theft crimes? Do you encourage your legislative representatives to address and strengthen laws protecting children from financial ruin?
Early detection involves knowing what to look for. It is important because, if victimized, your children will face emotional trauma. Early detection of child identity theft involving their medical information could save their life. Lastly, early detection will help law enforcement officers track the criminals down and possibly prevent others from being victimized.
Question #16: Why does it often take so long to discover that a child’s identity has been stolen?
Parents are often slow to discover that their child’s identity has been stolen for a variety of reasons. The primary one is that many people aren’t aware of this crime, so they fail to heed the signs that something has gone wrong. Only when the child turns eighteen years old and attempts to get a student loan, a credit card, or a car does the young adult usually discover that years of theft and abuse have ruined his or her credit.
Society is a mechanism of notification for adults. In the eyes of society, children, on the other hand, exist through their parents. If a child owed a bill, the parent would be viewed as the responsible party. The common practice for businesses is to operate on a thirty-day billing cycle. Each month, adults who have revolving credit accounts receive bills for account transactions that occurred during the last cycle. This billing system is how most adults find out that they have been victimized by identity theft.
Children are usually victimized by someone who diverts the address away from the child’s actual home address, so discovery of the crime is much more difficult. It usually happens in one of two ways. The majority of discoveries that happen during childhood involve a law enforcement officer showing up at the parent’s home with a court-involved collection notice or a warrant for the arrest of the child, who allegedly committed a crime. If the crime is not discovered during childhood, the shock is delivered upon the first credit check done for employment or a loan of any type.
It takes so long to see the signs of child identity theft because we fail to institute protective family policies and ignore the red-flag clues. Detection does not have to wait until disaster. Be proactive in your child’s protection. Make it a habit to request your child’s free credit report each year around January 1, so you will remember. Discuss with your child’s school administration, teacher, and parent-teacher association your concerns about child identity theft. Request that a police crime prevention officer come to your school to educate both parents and teachers on the crime.
Talk with your doctor about medical office practices. How do they secure your child’s information? Who has access to your child’s information? Do they do background checks on employees? Who cleans their office building? Do they shred all discarded documents? Lastly, ask the doctor what computer security mechanisms they have in place to protect your child’s information in their computers.
Child identity theft prevention in your home begins with honest and open discussions about the crime and what children and family members should, and should not, discuss about their personal information. The next step in shortening your discovery time is to put home safeguard steps in place. These include examining all mail and bills closely for irregularities, as well as flagging all children’s mail for examination of source by a parent.
Good home policies include ensuring all computers have virus, spyware, and malware detection programs installed. A strong defense would include instituting home shredding policies for documents being thrown in the trash, as well as developing family procedures on depositing mail in a locked mailbox instead of the typical home mailbox.
Once you have put these steps into place, look for the signs that something is wrong. Does your child have a virus on their computer? Are they getting increased daily mail? Are you getting phone calls from businesses, organizations, or people asking for your child? Is your child coming home with a story about someone asking about their personal information? Is there an item on a medical benefits statement for your child that you feel is not appropriate? These are but a few good ways to decrease the amount of time your child will be a victim.
Question #17: What are the laws regarding identity theft?
When it comes to child identity theft, the law is on your side. The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 made identity theft a federal crime. The 1998 law was strengthened by the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act in 2004, which established a two-year mandatory-minimum sentence that criminals must serve if convicted of aggravated identity theft. This act also provided for a five-year sentence for acts that deal with terrorism
Under federal criminal law, the definition of identity theft is “knowingly transfers, possesses or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law.”20
A violation of federal laws can be investigated by any federal law enforcement agency. Identity theft is most commonly investigated by the U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Social Security Administration.
In addition to federal laws, each state has a law that addresses identity theft. Table 1.1 shows a list of each state and the corresponding code or statute.21 You can research your state laws on the Internet by using a search engine and typing in the codes or statutes I have provided. For questions on a specific state code, contact your local prosecuting attorney, commonwealth’s attorney, or state attorney general’s office.
Table 1.1. State Identity Theft Laws
STATE
STATUTE or CODE
Alabama
Alabama Code § 13A-8-192
Alaska
Alaska Statute § 11.46.565
Alaska Statute § 11.46.570
Arizona
Arizona Rev. Statute § 13-2008
Arkansas
Arkansas Code Ann. § 5-37-227
California
California Penal Code § 530.5-8
Colorado
Colorado Rev. Statute § 18-5-902
Connecticut
Connecticut Statute § 53a-129 (Criminal)
Delaware
Delaware Code Ann. Tit.5 § 854
District of Columbia
D.C. Official Code § 22-3227.02
D.C. Official Code § 22-3227.03
D.C. Official Code § 22-327.04
Florida
Florida Statute Ann. § 817.568
Georgia
Georgia Code Ann. § 16-9-120 through 128
Guam
9 Guam Code Ann. § 46.80
Hawaii
Hawaii Rev. Statute § 708-839.6
Hawaii Rev. Statute § 708-839.7
Hawaii Rev
. Statute § 708-839.8
Idaho
Idaho Code § 18-3126 (Criminal)
Illinois
720 Illinois Comp. Statute 5/16G-13
Indiana
Indiana Code § 35-43-5-3.5
Iowa
Iowa Code § 715A.8 (Criminal)
Kansas
Kansas Statute Ann. § 21-4018
Kentucky
Kentucky Rev. Statute Ann. § 514.160
Louisiana
Louisiana Rev. Statute Ann. § 14:67.16
Maine
Maine Rev. Statute Ann. Tit. 17-A §905-A
Maryland
Maryland Code Ann. Article 27 § 231
Massachusetts
Massachusetts General Laws § 397-37E
Michigan
Michigan Comp. Laws § 445.65
Minnesota
Minnesota Statute Ann. § 609.527
Mississippi
Mississippi Code Ann. § 97-19-85
Missouri
Missouri Rev. Statute § 570.223
Montana
Montana Code Ann. § 45-6-332
Nebraska
Nebraska Rev. Statute § 28-608
Nebraska Rev. Statute § 28-620
Nevada
Nevada Rev. Statute § 205.464
Nevada Rev. Statute § 205.465
New Hampshire
New Hampshire Rev. Statute Ann. § 638:26
New Jersey
New Jersey Statute Ann. § 2C:21-17
New Mexico
New Mexico Statute Ann. § 30-16-24.1
New York
New York CLS Penal § 190.77 – 190.84
North Carolina
North Carolina General Statute § 14-113.20-23
North Dakota
North Dakota Criminal Code § 12.1-23-11
Ohio
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2913.49
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Statute tit. 21 § 1533.1
Oregon
Oregon Rev. Statute § 165.800
Pennsylvania
18 Pennsylvania Cons. Statute § 4120
Rhode Island
R.I. General Laws § 11-49.1 – 1-4
South Carolina
S.C. Code Ann. § 16-13-510-530
South Dakota
S.D. Codified Laws § 22-30A-3.1
Tennessee
TCA § 39-14-150 (Criminal)
TCA § 47-18-2101 (Civil)
TCA § 47-18-2102 (Civil)
TCA § 47-18-2103 (Civil)
TCA § 47-18-2105 (Civil)
Texas
Texas Penal Code § 32.51
Utah
Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-1101
Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-1102
Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-1103
Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-1104
Vermont
Vermont Code § 13.2030
Virginia
Virginia Code Ann. § 18.2-186.3
Washington
Washington Rev. Code § 9.35.020
West Virginia
W.Va. Code § 61-3-54
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Statute § 943.201
U.S. Territories
Do not have a specific law
U.S. Virgin Islands
14 VI Code Ann. §§ 3003
Puerto Rico
Does not have a specific law
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Recognizing How Child Identity Theft Happens
In this section, the author discusses how child identity theft has become so prevalent, detailing how thieves work and common scams they use to extract valuable information from unsuspecting children and their parents.
Question #18: What is the primary way children’s identities are stolen?
If you are like most parents, you will do anything and everything possible to protect your child. The majority of children’s identities, however, are not stolen as much as they are given away. The primary reason children’s identities are stolen has to do with a two-part system failure. First, parents fail to be proactive in protecting their children’s information, and second, the community has not yet recognized the dangerous effects child identity theft has on children.
If you don’t believe me, just ask yourself how many times you’ve filled out forms with your child’s name, birth date, and Social Security number since he or she was born. Now, can you tell me where all those forms are today? Consider this question: how difficult is it to steal information from a child when all the thief wants to know is their name, age, and birthday? What elementary school child does not proudly divulge this information almost on request? The reality is that children’s identities are being lost in great numbers each day, in part, because criminals seem to be more aware than parents of the value and accessibility of a child’s identifying information. Take again the example of forms you complete about your children: are they shredded as soon as the information has served its purpose? More likely, these documents sit somewhere on a table or a desk visible to anyone passing by. Others find their way to an unsecured file cabinet or a drawer. Your child’s medical records likely reside in the records-filing shelf you see multiple employees go to each time you visit the doctor’s office.
Left unsecure, your child’s identity is not only open to repeat and easy abuse by hardened thieves and terrorists, it is also fair game for opportunistic thieves who find it is much easier to steal information than to pay for the luxuries they want. Take Sarah, a child whose identity was stolen when she was just three years old. She did not find out until years later when she applied for credit on her own and was turned down because thieves had run up more than $500,000 in fraudulent loans and charges in her name. Her parents had no idea how the theft occurred. In small children, however, it usually happens because parents shared the child’s information with someone they mistakenly trusted or put it on a form that someone found in an office somewhere and chose to steal it for a new identity.
The good news is that knowledge is power. If you know thieves are actively looking for your child’s information, you can make it difficult for them to get. The analogy I like to use is locking your front door. When I was a child, we often left the house by pulling the door shut with never a care that it wasn’t locked. We did this because we knew every neighbor and proactively looked out for each other.
Life today is much different. You may live next to someone you do not meet for months, only to learn they are registered as a sex offender. You cannot leave your home unlocked today, regardless of where you live. The same is true for personal information. A Social Security number is not only identification in today’s world, but a form of currency that can be converted into cold hard cash, luxury goods, or mountains of debt by unscrupulous individuals. When you fail to be proactive in educating and protecting your children, you are actually “leaving the door open” to your home while they sleep.
How can you make a difference? The first step is to limit what you put on forms you fill out for your children. Most organizations have no need for a child’s Social Security number. The second is to sit down with your children and explain to them what constitutes “personal” information. Help them understand to whom it is okay to give their personal information and that it is alright to say “no” to those who ask for their personal information, even if they are adults. Remember, the primary way thieves obtain a child’s information is the parent or child gives it away unintentionally.
Question #19: What is cloning, and how do cloning thieves steal a child’s identity?
I remember a movie released years ago in which an individual figured out a way to scientifically “clone,” or duplicate, himself. It was a good movie and enjoyable to watch, but imagine that actually happening, without your permission. This is a prime example of identity theft cloning. Cloning is duplicating. Identity theft cloning means your child’s identity is permanently stolen, and it is used for criminal and financial gain.
Identity cloning is the most powerful, destructive, and dangerous kind
of child identity theft known in society. It does the most harm, has the deepest impact, and is the hardest to recover from. Cloning is calculated and evil.
Identity cloning is a criminal act in which an individual steals your child’s life history, and uses that information to establish a new identity in your child’s name. This form of cloning is primarily carried out by sophisticated criminals, not for a quick, one-time credit card purchase, or to re-establish utility accounts, but rather for an extended period of time, or forever.
Identity cloning criminals may seek to assume your child’s identity because they are planning a crime, or attempting to avoid law enforcement or prosecution. Cloners may be illegal aliens in the United States without proper documentation, or they may be terrorists.
The terrorist wants to clone, not borrow, your child’s identity. A terrorist seeking to clone intends to cause your child harm. They are not concerned with the latest iPods, fancy clothes, or the latest trends of fashion; they intend to inflict harm in the name of the cause they believe in. This is not to say that they do not steal or possess expensive things, but their motive is harm, not personal gain. A cloning criminal does not care about the impact identity theft will have on your child. The theft is a necessary step in achieving their desired goal.
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