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Stolen identities can enable criminals to commit mortgage fraud. And despite the continued escalation of identity theft — it can be prevented. Understanding identity theft and how the subsequent crimes evolve is key to taking the steps to prevent its occurrence as explained in Preventing Identity Theft In Your Business: How To Protect Your Business, Customers, And Employees. Author Judith M. Collins states, “There is little, if any, preemptive identity theft legislation, and businesses require no security standards to protect personal identities.”
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Part of the problem is due to outsourcing “white-collar jobs abroad to be performed by a cheaper workforce” and the “jurisdictional problems” that it causes when trying to prosecute those who perpetrate these crimes, said Collins — who is Director of Michigan State University-Business Identity Theft Partnerships in Prevention and Identity Theft Crime and Research Lab. Along with the shrinking reserves for law enforcement officials, the book says, and a developing legislation against new high-tech crimes, these factors each lend a hand to the rising rate of identity crime.
To “tighten business borders” Collins, who is also an information security management instructor, suggests creating an internal project team to evaluate and assess the company’s standard practices while identifying and organizing “personal” and “business” identities and the individuals who would have access to this data.
While it is important to know who and what positions in the company have access to personal information it is also imperative to hire qualified, honest individuals to fill those posts.
There are four steps to increase the prospective employee pool, the book explains. The first being termed as “snowballing,” contacting former employees who left voluntarily that might be interested in returning and asking them for referrals of others who might be interested. As studies show, the book says, “people with similar likes, behaviors, and characteristics are attracted to associate with one another.”
“Involving current employees,” Collins writes, is another way to increase the likelihood of finding capable and honest applicants.
Posting the job description with local newspapers, job counseling centers, and through email is the third way the book suggests when soliciting new hires.
The last step in finding recruits would be through personnel agencies, which Collins advises to use with caution. While there may be some agencies that offer “reliable sources,” some temporary workers may have hidden agendas, she explains. “Investigations also indicate that some perpetrators obtain contract or temporary employment with a company specifically for the purpose of identity theft.”
Although much of the information given by Collins is written with what appears to be laid out goals, objectives, and line-by-line instruction it is infused with redundancy and technical jargon that results in the reader stumbling over sentences and having to reread portions of the book for clarity.
Aside from stringent hiring practices and applied internal measures, there are practical applications that can be used at the technical level to provide safety measures for businesses.
StrikeForce Technologies yesterday announced its “real-time online identity verification solution,” VerifyID, can ensure a positive identification of potential customers and a cost-savings for companies that currently experience losses due to identity theft.
Utilizing more than 22 billion public records, VerifyID asks identifying questions that only the “real” user would be able to answer to “filter out pretenders, who simply can’t bluff the answers,” the company said in the announcement.
