City
helps prevent ID theft
Jennifer
Camacho/On-line Forty-Niner
By
Angelika Meyer
On-line Forty-Niner
Beginning
this fall, Cal State Long Beach students
were required to obtain a new student identification
card to replace our once widely used Social
Security number with a new student number.
Fortunately, for students, Long Beach was
a step ahead of the game, because it was
only in September that SB 25 passed, a bill
banning the use of a person's Social Security
number as a means of identity.
Identity
theft is taking a victim's identity in order
to obtain things such as credit, credit
cards, money from bank accounts and loans.
Impostors can even commit crimes while impersonating
a victim.
"Identity
theft is the fastest growing white-collar
crime in the country, and a Social Security
number is the pass key criminals need to
unlock a person's entire financial history,"
said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach,
who introduced the bill.
Nearly
10 million U.S. citizens were victims of
identity theft in the past year at a cost
of $50 billion to businesses and individuals.
According to a September survey by the Federal
Trade Commission,
All
an impostor has to do is steal a student's
ID card, most of which have the student's
social security numbers upon it, and they
are able to begin their fraud.
A
former student and employee at UC Riverside
was one such impostor. He stole over 100
names and Social Security numbers of students,
and in December 2002 plead guilty to identity
fraud, money laundering and forgery.
Since
online purchasing, credit card applications,
loan applications, bank statements and many
other things are easily done with the click
of a button, all it takes is for a person
to find the insecure sites and steal your
information online. There are even Web sites
designed to sell your personal information
to people for prices as low as $15, similar
to the way telemarketers were able to obtain
your phone number.
"While
I don't know of any personal relations who
have had their identity stolen, I do know
that identity theft is easy to commit, especially
with all of the information that is strewn
about the internet," said Adam Boothby,
sociology and film studies major at UC Irvine.
Besides
obtaining a new student ID card, there are
other precautionary measures that can be
taken to make sure you're not a victim of
identity theft. According to IdentityTheft.org
there are several things people should do
to protect their privacy and reduce the
risk of identity theft. First of all, buy
a paper shredder and shred any documents
containing your name, Social Security number,
driver's license number, address, birthday,
credit card number or bank account number.
Second, be careful of "dumpster diving"
by making sure you don't just throw away
documents containing any type of personal
information. Be careful at bank ATMs because
someone might "shoulder surf"
and get a person's pin number from you before
you even realize it. Cancel any credit cards
that have not used in over six months, and
just be cautious about giving out any personal
information to anyone. Don't receive or
mail checks from home
Since
SB 25 is a non-appropriations bill, meaning
the state does not give any money to schools
to implement changes, the new identification
cards will not go into effect until Jan.
1, 2004 at the earliest.
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