If you're anything like me you have probably at some stage or another lost or had your mail stolen here and there, misplaced or had your wallet stolen, birth certificate and other personal identification documents stolen from a suitcase kept amongst personal belongings in say a robbery.
Well you and me alike know all too well what a daunting process it is to replace it all and re establish your identity.
Now the primary issue and concern is how simple it is to become a victim of identity theft or fraud.
A potential criminal can simply apply for credit such as phone line, internet connection, private health insurance and over time build up enough records to assume your identity and sadly it's as easy as getting your name and date of birth, another potential threat is someone taking a peek at your bank cards or credit cards, all they need is to take a quick photo and they can go on a shopping spree with your legitimate savings and hard earned income!
What about fraud and finances, sadly another loophole due to poor security, lack of Government policy and legislation that is ever so slow to keep up with fast pacing changes when it comes to protecting a persons identity, prosecuting and charging culprits.
Alright I now give you a brief story, this happened to me, I had my wallet stolen on three different occasions and it had all my ID and other cards you expect to find in a wallet, once in NSW and twice in Victoria, now at the same time or shortly after a backpack on one occasion and a suitcase on another containing vital identity documents like birth certificate, medical, utilities etc etc were stolen too. I broke down but persevered to get it all replaced and reported as soon as possible.
The police couldn't do much it's still a bit of a grey area, but what's really alarming above all else is that old drivers licence and medicare card can still be used to commit fraud and damage your credit history or worse yet land you in court for a matter you had nothing to do with!
See a criminal can get someone that either looks like you to walk into a bank, mobile phone store or anywhere they wish and more than likely succeed in their illegal actions, why? Because of one example say a drivers licence, the number stays the same and businesses and financial institutions rarely if ever take note of card number (NSW Licence being the example) so you get a new licence replacement a card number identifying it on physical sighting as a new ID but no one is even trained to focus on that, and worse yet, that stolen one, it can still pass electronic verification!
It's an absolute nightmare, so what's the solution?
Well it hasn't been drawn, no policy developed and the lack of legislature and policy is the issue. I provide my solutions, innovative ideas on this blog which I believe you should all petition your MP, write to Canberra and simply demand this, as far as I can see when taking all variables into account it is the ultimate solution to end fraud and identity theft for good!
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I thought of a policy where the Australian Government develop a cross business, state and federal Government department agency and institution, credit reporting bodies framework for any provider of any service or product to instantly verify a card or document and its authenticity and validity.
It would work in a way where say the criminal walks into a bank, they show the drivers licence and/or another form of ID they robbed you of...
Here's the good part, the teller scans the documents as evidence that can be sighted and they type up the particulars of the ID, including card number, now this system should be encrypted and a cloud platform offered by the Australian Government to businesses and financial institutions in the form of a compulsory identity theft prevention measure, sweeten the deal for the Government by say making their new database an annual fee subscription service, there's revenue for them and protection of your identity.
Now for example our criminal waits, the teller receives a response highlighting stolen, the software notifies the issuer and blocks it's use by requesting the document be removed from their database and it automatically notifies law enforcement of the terminal date time and GPS particulars and highlights "Illegal fraud committed" or similar and a biometric camera at the teller window automatically takes photographs of the thief for evidence. Now mistakes can happen say you forget to change address the teller will have a time limit say 2 minutes to click a false alarm key, update your address so long as you can provide two additional identity documents that must also be scanned and verified, if successful the database updates your details across an array of institutions, if not then you need to be prosecuted and charged for it!
Simple a national framework that needs legislation permitting its implementation let's say the Anti money laundering and Counter terrorism Act, then a policy and pricing structure for offering, not to mention making it compulsory by law!
That's the physical ID solution I believe resolves all loopholes, as for online ID verification keep the existing providers in place but enforce their adoption of the new cloud database where it can upon stolen ID being entered, immediately log IP address, GPS location, name of internet service account holder and other data and if several matches are found to establish the culprit same story, prosecution, charge!
So say goodbye to identity crime, this idea saves the good public their identity and saves everyone time.
Write a letter, simply quote the block as your reference, feel free to do so and together tackle to get this idea into motion.
ARTICLE WRITTEN BY - Casey Jay Topojani