Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 03/30/05

Contact person(s):

Media Coordinator, Donna Edwards - 565-3099 Media Spokesperson, District Attorney Passalacqua

Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California

DISTRICT ATTORNEY JOINS SENATOR FEINSTEIN IN
FIGHTING IDENTITY THEFT

On March 29 th Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua joined Senator Dianne Feinstein and other law enforcement leaders and consumer advocates in support of three legislative bills in Congress against the fight against identity theft. Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask was the moderator at a small roundtable in Riverside, California which discussed ways to ensure that the privacy of citizens is protected. “Identity theft is a major problem in California and across the nation and we must work together to fight it”, said District Attorney Passalacqua. Many of these offenses are committed by criminals who are motivated by a methamphetamine habit. The Federal Trade Commission ranks the Bay Area as one of the top ten areas in the nation with the highest number of identity theft reports per capita. Ten million individuals reported being victims of identity theft across the nation in 2004, and one million of them are in California. “ Identity theft has opened a whole new criminal enterprise”, said Senator Feinstein.

Senator Feinstein has proposed three bills in Congress to help protect sensitive personal data. The Privacy Act (S.116), the Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act (S.29) and the Notification Personal Data Act (S.115) address significant systematic problems that contribute to identity theft in the United States. The Privacy Act Bill would require financial institutions to ask for consumer authorization prior to selling their personal data. The Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act limits the circulation of an individual’s social security numbers, and the Notification of Personal Data Act requires that financial institutions notify individual customers when there is a breach of security, such as the recent incident of ChoicePoint involving 145,000 Americans.

Present at this roundtable were also Marin County District Ed Berberian, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, San Bernardino County District Attorney District Attorney Mike Ramos, Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle, Los Angeles Sheriff Department Sergeant Bob Berardi, Sacramento Sheriff Department Lieutenant Bob Lozito, San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod, Director of the California Consumer Union Gail Hillebrand, Beth Givens, Director of the Privacy Clearing House, crime victims and other law enforcement officials.