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CRIMINAL IDENTITY THEFT
Description
of issue. The number
one topic of those who contact the hotline
of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is identity
theft -- when an imposter is able to obtain
credit in the victim's name by having just
a small amount of information about that person,
typically the Social Security number (SSN).
We refer to this crime as credit-related identity
theft.
A
growing form of identity theft is what we call criminal identity
theft. In 2000 we joined with CALPIRG to conduct
a survey of credit-related identity theft victims.
One of the findings surprised us - that 12% of
those who had experienced credit fraud were also
burdened with a wrongful criminal record due to
the activities of the imposter. Similarly, Federal
Trade Commission statistics show that 15% of the
identity theft victims in its database are dealing
with criminal identity theft.
Criminal
identity theft occurs when the imposter uses the
innocent person's identification when arrested,
say, for a traffic violation, shoplifting, marijuana
possession, or another misdemeanor. When that individual
fails to appear in court on the appointed day,
a warrant is issued for the arrest of the innocent
person.
The
warrant may go unused for quite some time - until
the unfortunate individual is stopped by law enforcement
for speeding or a broken tail light, for example,
or when going through U.S. Customs after returning
from another country. Then the innocent individual
may be arrested or even jailed -- until they can
successfully prove that they are being impersonated
by someone who used their identification data upon
arrest.
It
is virtually impossible to clear one's wrongful
criminal record. There are no standard procedures,
as there are with credit-related identity theft,
to wipe the slate clean. Victims must obtain a
certificate of clearance from the law enforcement
unit where the arrest was made, and/or from the
court system in that jurisdiction. But that document
is not universally accepted by other law enforcement
units.
Looking
ahead. Cases of
criminal identity theft are going to increase,
perhaps substantially, for several reasons.
First, credit-related identity theft is on
the rise. The Federal Trade Commission says
that identity theft is the fastest growing
crime in the nation. We know from survey data
that approximately one in six such victims
will also have to deal with wrongful criminal
records.
Second,
commercial sector information brokers are collecting
an increasing amount of arrest and conviction data
and are making it available for a variety of purposes,
among them, law enforcement investigations and
employment background checks. There is no such
thing as a perfectly accurate database. Because
these files are not updated as diligently as they
should be, and because identity theft is on the
rise, those who use such data are going to obtain
inaccurate information on countless numbers of
innocent individuals.
Law
enforcement agencies and court systems at the local,
state, and federal levels are going to need to
adopt procedures to enable individuals with wrongful
criminal records to remove or amend those records.
It is likely that laws must be passed to establish
such procedures. The California legislature has
begun this process, passing laws in recent legislative
sessions to assist individuals with wrongful criminal
records.
But
the process of establishing procedures to enable
victims to remove erroneous criminal records data
is very complex. Procedures vary from jurisdiction
to jurisdiction, and from state to state. Criminal
records agencies (the Departments of Justice in
each state and the FBI) want to ensure that the
accuracy and security of their data files are protected.
For the sake of those innocent individuals who
are burdened with wrongful criminal records, it
is vitally important that this issue be addressed
on a national basis, something that is likely to
take considerable time.
Read the entire aricle here: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/Privacy-IssuesList.htm
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