Following the Equifax breach many have asked the three Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA) to 'freeze' their credit accounts. A credit freeze is being advertised as a means of blocking all access to your credit reports with the expectation that it will stop identity thieves from setting up bank accounts, taking out loans, or other financial transactions all in your name. In fact a credit freeze will block many enterprises from checking your credit reports which should prevent identity thieves from opening new lines of credit.
What we are not told is our credit information will still be released to any of our existing creditors as well as any debt collectors who are trying to recover funds. Your Bank, your credit card providers, and any other financial institution that has a financial relationship with you can gain access to your credit information from any of the three CRAs. The problem is your existing creditors are selling your credit information. An example is Bank of America (BofA) who sends a letter to its customers every year telling how they 'safeguard' financial information. They also let us know they are sharing our financial information with their affiliates and we can't prevent this sharing. Sharing is a misnomer because what BofA is doing is selling this critical information to their affiliates. We can't know who these affiliates are and therefore don't know what their policies are concerning protection of financial information.
Currently there is no foolproof method of insuring identity thieves will be prevented from gaining access to your credit information. It is unsettling knowing our credit information is being sold legally and also illegally by Hackers; this information is everything an identity thief needs to make any of us identity theft victims.
The solution we need is the means to prevent these thieves from making use of of our identity information. The best and simplest way is through the use of the Social Security Number (SSN) registry which is a facility that allows each of us to register our SSN. The way it protects us is by allowing anyone engaged in a financial transaction to access the registry to verify the owner of an SSN. If the SSN is registered a message from SSN owner is displayed. The message can be anything the SSN owner wants, it could be a phone number to call prior to approving any type of financial transaction or it could be a requirement to enter a security code known only to the SSN owner. The SSN registry will prevent identity theft and save us billions of dollars every year.
Those who wish to register their SSN must have established their identity in the Identity Bank. The Identity Bank and the SSN registry are currently in development and expected to be available in 2018. More information is available in the book An Identity You Could Own which is available on Amazon and through Apple iBooks at a cost of $.99.
