LANSING – State Representative Terry Brown (D-Pigeon) today voted for a plan to help better protect Michigan residents from the fast-growing crime of identity theft and enable victims to obtain compensation when they spend thousands of dollars to get their lives back in order and restore their credit.
"Victims of identity theft often must spend incredible amounts of time and money to fix the wreckage left by these anonymous criminals," Brown said. "These thieves must be held accountable, and they must be forced to help repair the damage they did. This plan puts the power back in the victim's hands and enables them to get their money and their lives back more quickly."
Identity theft has surpassed drug trafficking as the No. 1 crime in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The total cost of identity theft in the U.S. in 2006 was $49 billion. Victims paid about $4.5 billion of this, and the rest was paid by merchants and financial institutions. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, about 10 million people are harmed by identity theft each year.
The key parts of the plan that passed the House today will:
- Allow identity theft victims to file civil suits to be compensated for the money spent to repair their financial affairs and credit history, and require courts to order restitution.
- Require businesses to have an identity theft prevention plan; failure to do so would result in a fine of up to $10,000.
- Require any data that includes unencrypted personal information to be destroyed when it is removed from the database of a business or agency.
Brown also voted last year for a plan to fight identity theft by allowing Michigan residents to place a security freeze on their credit report and prohibiting a credit-reporting agency from releasing or using information without proper authorization. That plan has been awaiting action in the Senate.
"As we work to increase our economic security by creating good-paying jobs now, we also have to protect our residents' individual financial security," Brown said. "I urge the Senate to quickly approve these plans to protect our residents from identity theft."