The Assembly helped enact new laws to crack down on the growing crime of identity theft. These laws will better protect New York residents from being targets of identity theft and provide assistance for those who are victimized.

Identity theft is one of the most difficult crimes to detect. Unfortunately, victims often aren’t aware of what’s happened until they apply for a loan or fill out a credit application. Identity theft is difficult to trace, and it can take years to reverse its damaging effects. Assemblyman Lavine worked hard for these critical new measures - to help prevent these crimes before they happen. New legislation will:

• Provide consumers with the ability to "freeze" their credit reports to guard against identity theft (Ch. 63 of 2006)

• Require all businesses or business persons to take detailed steps when disposing of personal information (Ch. 65 of 2006)

• Allow the attorney general to bring civil action against "phishers." A phisher is someone who sends an e-mail falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to obtain private information to be used for identity theft (Ch. 64 of 2006).

The Assembly has passed other important legislation that Assemblyman Lavine encourages the Senate and governor to act upon, including:

• Place limits on the use and disclosure of individual’s Social Security account number (A.10076-D)

• Require state and local government agencies to redact personal identifying information from a record before it is made available to the public (A.10075-A)

• Institute an Identity Theft Mitigation Unit within the Consumer Protection Board, create an Identity Security Task Force, and require law-enforcement agencies to take identity theft complaints and provide reports of these instances (A.10077)

• Restrict businesses from filing personal identifying information as part of a public record that is not relevant and necessary to accomplish the purpose of the filing (A.7670-D)