So apparently to some in the identity community having someone use your debit/credit card number is not “really” identity theft.
This is how I see it. The Bank ‘issues’ me an identifier – or an identity.
It is the card that i get from them – when I present it and enter in my pin they know I am me. This is my identity in relationship to them. (every time I go see a teller I must swipe my card and enter my PIN).
So when someone takes that identity given to me by my bank (and uses it fraudulently) THIS IS IDENTITY THEFT.
It turns out the bank had me fill out the wrong forms and today I had to fill out different ones (another 30 min later). Apparently with debit card fraud I will get a response within 10 days about the situation.
I am off to Portland tomorrow for recent changes camp with a giant wad of travelers cheques to get by sans card that works in machine.
Identity Theft
The insecure keys to our castles SSNs
This was on Slashdot today and highlighted again the main problem the identifier SSN and the password to access accounts and other critical information in our lives is THE SAME. This is a structural problem created by our ubiquitous use of SSN. This needs to be addressed by government, employers and the commercial sector.
“Many of us that work in the financial sector are bombarded with daily security threats. One of the biggest these days is Identity Theft. My fellow comrades and I have been really grilling each other on differing scenarios on what could be done with what information. However, it all seems to come back the the Social Security Number. Financial companies have other controls in place (customer service verification checking, account passwords, etc) to ensure identification. But in order to be of any use, a bad guy would really need someone’s SSN. Absent of that, other information would be useless. Right? That’s what I would like to ask Slashdot folks. What could be realistically done with customer information without a SSN? Account numbers, address, maybe a phone or payment amount. Is that really dangerous to the customer if only those get compromised?”