Identity Theft. It plagues millions of Americans every year.  If you haven’t experienced it yourself, chances are that you know someone who has.  Of the more than 3 million complaints collected by the FTC in 2015, over 490,000 of the complaints were about identity theft.  But that only accounts for cases reported to law enforcement.

For this entry, we will be taking a look at AB 1580, the California bill that gives children (and other protected individuals) the ability to use a credit freeze to as a tool to help protect against identity theft. 

Secret questions, Security questions, Multi-Factor Authentication… we all know the drill. When you first create an account on a secure site, you’ll probably be asked to choose 2-3 questions to answer in case you forget your password or your account gets hacked. Some really secure sites will require you to answer one of them each time you sign in, even with your password. So you click on the drop-down menu and scan the meager selection of questions to choose from. Here are the ones you might want to steer clear of and why:

This week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took an important step to protect the privacy of consumers online.  Individuals have little choice over how they access the internet, and broadband internet service providers (ISPs) have access to an enormous amount of information about their customers.  The FCC adopted broadband privacy rules that recognize this and will allow broadband customers to exercise more control over how their ISPs use and share their data.

Over half of Americans have a health-related mobile application on their phone. These apps can track vitals like weight and blood pressure, keep up with diet and exercise habits, and even offer medication reminders. Health and medical apps typically require users to register in order to create a personalized profile and to associate their logged information with their account.

Your smartphone may be vulnerable to would-be hackers, and you may not ever know it. Hackers will attempt to gain access to your email, your password, your contacts, even your photos. And if you use your smartphone for work, hackers could also try to gain company intelligence from your mobile phone.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) respectfully submits the following comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services".

Prepaid cards, also known as “general purpose reloadable cards”, have become increasingly popular in the past few years, among both consumers with and without a bank account. According to a recent report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately 1 in 11 consumers use a prepaid card at least once per month, and 27% of these users do not have a checking account.

Introduction of Award Recipient, Associate Professor Kristen Walker, PhD
CSUN Department of Marketing

By Beth Givens, Executive Director, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

April 5, 2016

I’m honored to be invited to introduce Associate Professor Kristen Walker, the recipient of the Jerome Richfield Scholar award. I’ve also been invited to say a few words about consumer privacy.

Alert for California Parents of School-Age Children:

California School Students’ Information Scheduled to be Released

The Identity Theft Resource Center and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse want to alert all parents of school-aged children throughout California about a pending deadline to object to the potential release of their child’s sensitive personal identifying information. The deadline for parents and adult students to object to the disclosure of personal information and records is April 1, 2016.