Third time: Not always a charm

Blogger: Kevin Kampman

Last week was an identity theft week for me. First, I was contacted by a local news reporter for background on who was most vulnerable to identity theft. In the same period, I received a mailing from the US Postal Service with an insert from the Federal Trade Commission on preventing identity theft. I then received a solicitation from a financial institution offering to sell me identity theft insurance. I guess if the fox has to watch the henhouse, it might be worth asking you to pay for the inconvenience…

To top it off, I took notice of the seven-year-old boy in Illinois who was notified by the IRS that he owed $60,000 in back taxes. It appears that a 29-year-old stole the child’s information not long after he was born, then used his identity for jobs, goods, and services. The perpetrator was subsequently charged with felony identity theft. The article does not say if the IRS backed off from trying to collect from the seven-year-old. One can only hope.

It will be really unfortunate if this child bears the stigma and the associated costs of this incident. The truly guilty parties are those who failed to properly vet the stolen identity information in the first place. When business starts to accept their responsibility for accepting stolen identities, we won’t be made to pay for their lassitude, and the chickens will truly be safer.

I am concerned that business and government may both be aligned to blame the individual, when in fact they own the responsibility for the failure to protecting the individual’s interest. Accepting stolen credentials is really their problem. Until we recognize this fundamental characteristic, and the associated changes that need to occur in business and government, stories like this will continue to make headlines.