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LICENSE TO STEAL

By Andy Vuong
Denver Post
October 21st, 2003

The fight to curb identity theft may face an unexpected hurdle: state policy.
 
By month’s end, all Colorado drivers’ licenses will be issued through the mail instead of over-the-counter. And next year, big game hunters will, for the first time, be required to put their Social Security numbers on their mail-in license applications.
 
Meanwhile, identity theft is reaching epidemic proportions, and the majority of thieves are getting the information they use to pose as someone else through the mail.
 
"Most identity theft involves U.S. mail," said Brian Mullervy, an inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Denver.
 
Mullervy attributes the connection to the abundance of information that is available in mailboxes, from credit card statements to payments that have names, addresses and sometimes Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
 
The state’s policy changes come as law enforcement and other agencies, including the Postal Inspection Service and the Secret Service, are joining forces to combat identity theft, the nation’s fastest growing consumer crime.
 
Identity theft affected nearly 10 million people and cost consumers and businesses $53 billion last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The Colorado attorney general says identity theft is the state’s top consumer crime.
 
Identity theft generally occurs when a perpetrator uses an individual’s personal information for financial gain, from renting a home to opening a credit card account.
 
Mullervy said putting actual driver’s license’s in the mail could make a thief’s work a little easier.
 
"If the thief gets somebody’s original driver’s license, what does it take for them to put their picture over your picture?" Mullvery said.
 
The Colorado Department of Revenue said issuing driver’s licenses through the mail would decrease the risk of identity fraud. Under the so-called central issuance system, people receive their driver’s licenses about two weeks after their visit to a Department of Motor Vehicle office. Officials use that time to compare photos they have on file with new photos taken with a face-recognition system to ensure that people don’t get multiple licenses.
 
"We have taken the necessary steps to ensure security," said Michael Cook, executive director of the Department of Revenue. "If we thought we were creating a new security problem by going to central issuance, then we wouldn’t be moving in that direction."
 
Cook said that 34 of the state’s 56 driver’s licenses offices operate under the central issuance system. The remaining 22 offices will move to the new system by the end of the month. She said motor vehicle officials issue 130,000 documents a month and that an average of about 20 turn out to be fraudulent.
 
"It is too many as far as we’re concerned. We don’t want to be issuing any fraudulent documents," Cook said. "We feel (central issuance) is a very important step."
 
But the move may backfire as identity theft continues to surge.
 
"When we’re putting thing in the mail, we’re asking for trouble," Lon Garner, head of the Denver office of the Secret Service, said at a news conference last month when addressing questions about the state’s plans to move to central issuance.
 
In a recent interview, Garner said he believes the mail is safe but that the state’s new driver’s license policy means that there’s "just another conveyance you have to go through."
 
Through September, postal inspectors had arrested 150 people in Colorado for mail theft, compared with 120 people during all of last year.
 
Jay Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center, said Colorado’s move to central issuance shouldn’t have a big impact because the key piece of information identity thieves look for - Social Security numbers - often aren’t on driver’s licenses. Other states also mail driver’s licenses, such as California and Florida, Foley said.
 
But another change the state is enacting will make more Social Security numbers available through the mail. Starting next year, all big-game hunters will have to put their Social Security number on their license applications. The vast majority of applications are sent through the mail.
 
The change is a requirement of the Child Support Enforcement Act, a law aimed at tracking down deadbeat parents.
 
"We had been asking applicants to put their Social Security number on their applications. We now are requiring it," Todd Malmsbury, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
 
Grand Junction resident Duane Howard said he was surprised by the requirement, given the warnings from law enforcement agencies about protecting your personal information, because of the rise in identity theft.
 
"On one hand, they say protect your Social Security number, and then the state enacts a law that puts my Social Security number at risk," said Howard, who hunts once a year. " It’s really kind of the irony and hypocrisy of the state.
 
"If I protect my Social Security number, then I’m being denied a service that I had available to me in the past," Howard said.

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