WILLMAR -- Minnesota is a prime target for identity theft crimes, because of its lax policies in selling driver's license data, Attorney General Mike Hatch said Wednesday.
Hatch held news conferences around the state about the privacy legislation he has championed in the Legislature. He would like to see Minnesotans contact their legislators to urge them to pass the legislation.
"We have a huge identity theft problem in this state," Hatch said.
That's partly because the state Department of Public Safety sells driver's license information to a variety of Web sites which re-sell it online.
Only six other states allow similar sales of such information about their residents.
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Officers with the state Financial Crimes Task Force routinely find driver's license information purchased from those Web sites when they execute search warrants, Hatch said.
Hatch called driver's license information "the new Social Security number." With it, thieves can make fake driver's licenses, create fraudulent bank checks and create other identification papers.
Other legislation in the package would:
- Prevent the sale of telephone and cell phone records, which are also for sale on Web sites.
- Limit the use of Social Security numbers by businesses.
- Require banks and health care providers to notify people whose confidential records have been released.
- Allow consumers to limit or freeze access to credit information held by credit bureaus.
- Require businesses to make sure private customer information is removed by computers before they are sold or discarded.
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Hatch spent some time talking about the sale of phone records.
It is fairly easy for anyone to pay $40 to $74 to a Web site which will provide information about the last 100 calls a person made from a cell phone or a landline, he said.
Those services are used by divorce lawyers, media outlets and business competitors, as well as identity thieves, he said.
Minnesotans should be able to have "the normal dignity of not having people monitor who you talk to," Hatch said.
Some of the bills in the package have been heard in Senate committees and are likely to pass in the Senate, Hatch said. However, none of them have been heard so far in the House.
It's important that something be done about the state's sale of personal data, he said.
Nationwide, businesses lose $50 billion a year to identity theft, he said. Merchants lose all but the first $50 spent fraudulently at their businesses.
"Every year for the last six years, people say they like them," he said. "Every year for the last six years, nothing happens."
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Lobbyists for telemarketers and credit bureaus try to derail the privacy proposals, Hatch said, and legislators are easily sidetracked by other subjects.
Each year, the Legislature seems to become consumed with an issue that distracts from its day-to-day work, Hatch said. Last year, it was the debate over an Indian casino in the Twin Cities, something his office said was unconstitutional.
"I don't know what it is in this state; we get people who want to run off and talk about anything but the future of this state," he said.
