State legislators passed a bill last week that makes it easier for Ohioans to request credit freezes to protect against identity theft.
Starting Sept. 1, a credit freeze will cost $5 for anyone and $5 to lift it but will be free for identity-theft victims. A credit freeze prevents new lines of credit from being opened, preventing an identity thief from using another person's personal information to start new credit accounts or take out loans.
A credit freeze does not prevent someone from using another's existing accounts, which can be difficult to detect.
That kind of ID theft is much more difficult to detect
unless you're religiously checking your credit report said Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy group.
Ohio's freeze law lets people get a complete credit freeze for the $5, instead of going to each of the three major credit reporting agencies and paying separate fees of $10 each. The bill also requires that social security numbers and other personal information be removed from documents available to the public.
Rep. Jimmy Stewart, R-Athens, co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Timothy DeGeeter, D-Parma. Both had sponsored their own identity protection bills in 2006, but those bills failed to pass.
Stewart said the increase in high-profile data breaches ' including the 2006 breaches at OU that exposed more than 173,000 social security numbers to hackers ' increased the bill's support. Another high-profile data breach occurred last summer when data tapes containing the personal information of 64,000 state employees were stolen from a state intern's car, according to The Associated Press.
I think a lot of it had to do with how the issue of identity theft has gained notoriety Stewart said. That had a lot to do with a greater awareness of the problem.
Although Stewart said he did not want to speculate why the 2006 bills he and DeGeeter had sponsored failed, he noted that neither had the bi-partisan support or the media attention for data breaches that this bill has had.
Ohio lagged behind most other states in passing similar measures, Kenney said. Until last week, Ohio was one of about a dozen states without credit freeze laws. Freeze laws in some other states require that the service be free.
Some states only extend the freeze right to victims of identity theft, Kenney said, adding that Ohio's freeze law lets consumers request a freeze for any reason.
It's akin to locking your doors
Stewart said. It's basically a good defense.
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