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Identity Theft Petition| Category | | | Summary | | This month, the Cyberarmy Privacy Commission finally launched the petition program with the Identity Theft Petition. I will talk about the petition program, what it is good for, what it can do for you, and a little bit about this Identity theft petition. |
| | Body | A petition is a document signed by a group of people who agree with the premise of a request addressed to a person or organization with authority. CPC provides support for this kind of petition, if you need this service please create a petition and we will handle things like the promotion and delivery.
You might wonder what a petition would be good for even if 10,000 people signed it. Let me tell you a story about a little girl in the 8th grade. Laurie Wolff was upset that her 8th grade classmates who refused to do animal dissection were getting failing grades. She collected signatures on a petition and then testified before the Las Vegas School Board urging that students be given the option to do virtual dissections with the use of a CD-ROM. One of the largest school districts in the country responded to this 12-year-old student's call and adopted this policy." (source:www.youthactivism.com) If a 12 year old girl made a difference, why can't you ?
I f that still doesn't convince you then what do you have to loose ? It takes you 20 minutes to write a petition and if the organization the petition is sent to does not respond at least you know you have X number of sympathetic people to your cause. You can't wait for stuff to happen to you ! You need to act !
Now, let's go in detail about the current Identity Theft Petition. First off, we need to know exactly what Identity Theft is and why it should bother you. Then we can see what you can do about it.
Identity theft is the deliberate assumption of another person's identity usually to gain access to their finances or frame them for a crime. Less commonly it is used to enable illegal immigration, terrorism, espionage, or changing identity permanently.
So, let's take this definition step by step:
How do they get such information?
It is easier than you may think, a couple of years ago it was a "dumpster diving" operation which means that people would have gone through your garbage looking for personal information like an old expired credit card, a phone bill, copies of your checks, credit card or bank statements, or even "preapproved" credit cards that you receive and just throw away. Now the world has changed and they don't need to use these methods. Someone can steal your personal information from miles away and there are various ways to do this. Sadly, there are still a high number of people that actually believe and reply to all the spam that they find in their email. Another more popular way is the use of special software such as trojan horses or key loggers. Physhing is another way that people get scammed in to giving their personal information away. Sadly, most cases of personal information misuse can come from different organizations or sites that give away or sell their client's personal information.
Imagine yourself at home sitting on the couch watching the game on TV and suddenly you hear a knock on the door. When you answer the door two police officers tell you that your wife has died in a car accident. Three hours later (after you called all the family and gave them the news) your wife comes home happy because she just got a promotion at work.
Another example would be that someone takes away your car because you didn't have enough money in your bank account to make the car payments.
An even worst case could be that you are arrested and convicted for a crime that you didn't commit because a lot of evidence is tied up to your name, address and social security number.
What can you do about this? Well the answer is pretty simple. The United States government has proposed several pieces of legislation to combat identity theft by requiring eCommerce operators to meet stringent privacy guidelines. They need your help, sign the Identity Theft Petition provided by CPC and make a stand. Always read a site's privacy policy (yes, I know it's boring but, do you actually want someone to come home and give your family the news that you died in a car accident while you are home taking a shower ?). Tear up everything that may have your personal information on it that you may not need and throw it away.
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: DeadGuy)
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