Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country and
concern by the public is growing rapidly with each new data breach
exposed. This increase is directly attributable to advances made in
the area of computer technology and data collection that allow
information sharing across agencies, governmental boundaries and
service providers. These advances have made it easy for public and
private institutions to gather large amounts of information on citizens,
including their names, addresses and Social Security Numbers (SSN).
One indicator of the scope of the problem is the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse report of over 104 million security breaches since January
2005 involving personal information that could be used for identity theft.
In May 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) jolted its
constituents and the government with the revelation that the theft of a
laptop from an employee's home made 26.5 million veterans' records
vulnerable to identity......
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