Congress Should Act to Mitigate Child Identity Theft as SubscriberWise Offers a New Case of Child Identity Theft

According to SubscriberWise CEO David Howe, the absence of basic technology solutions at the federal level enables and perpetuates child identity theft. Congress should mandate protection of child social security numbers through the creation of an index of living children.


WASHINGTON, March 11, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - SubscriberWise, the leading provider of analytics-driven subscriber decision management technology and the nation's first issuing consumer reporting agency for the communications industry, announced today that the company is again encouraging Congress to introduce and pass a legislative initiative that would require the creation of a national index of child social security numbers. The effort continues following another incident of child identity theft and on the heels of news that millions of child identities were stolen with the Anthem data breach (DailyFinance, February 19, 2015; http://www.dailyfinance.com/2015/02/19/kids-ids-exposed-anthem-hack/).

"SubscriberWise has made repeated pleas to Congress and President Obama to enact a child protection bill that would protect a minor's SSN at the federal level," said David Howe, president of SubscriberWise. "Yesterday I documented a new case of child identity theft."

"It's a fact that child identity thefts are rarely exposed and almost never prosecuted. It's also a reality that children often experience profoundly negative consequences, sometimes for many years after victimization. Even more unfortunate, the perpetrator is frequently - usually - a parent or guardian of the child," confirmed Howe who has exposed hundreds of child identity theft cases and provided information and training to various levels of law enforcement including FBI agents, police detectives, prosecutors, and several judges.

"The proposed solution would essentially freeze a living child's social security number - and identify to creditors - that the number matched belongs to a minor (i.e. File not returned, indicates minor: SSN frozen by federal law). Federally regulated Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion would be required to reference the index," explained Howe. "The three national credit bureaus would instantly alert creditors that a social security number submitted with an application is blocked and registered to a known child. FICO, Vantage Score LLC, and other credit scoring agencies could also create technology that would trigger a 'minor' alert during the calculation of a score - nearly identical to the technology that is used today to prevent consumer files from being scored because the file contains one or more 'deceased' indicators."

"Children can't rely on parent-initiated efforts and individual state options for protection. There must be a comprehensive, national solution," Howe concluded. "It's time to focus time and resources on this problem. It's time for Congress to work together and create a solution to better protect children."

About SubscriberWise

SubscriberWise® launched as the first U.S. issuing consumer reporting agency exclusively for the cable industry in 2006. In 2009, SubscriberWise and TransUnion announced a joint marketing agreement for the benefit of America's independent cable operators. Today SubscriberWise is a risk management preferred-solutions provider for the National Cable Television Cooperative.

SubscriberWise technology has prevented thousands of child identity thefts and uncovered the misuse of personally identifiable information for operators everywhere.

Today SubscriberWise's award winning technology protects billions of dollars of capital investment and revenue for the nation's leading communications companies.

This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/03/prweb12575590.htm


            

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