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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

State AGs urge FTC to update identity theft rules

State Issues FTC Identity Theft RFI State Attorney General Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security

State Issues

On February 11, a bipartisan group of 29 state Attorneys General, the District of Columbia Attorney General, and an official from the Hawaii Office of Consumer Protection, responded to the FTC’s request for comment on whether the agency should make changes to its identity theft detection rules (the Red Flags Rule and the Card Issuers Rule), which require financial institutions and creditors to take certain actions to detect signs of identity theft affecting their customers. (Covered by InfoBytes here.) 

In their response, the Attorneys General urge the FTC not to repeal the Rules, arguing that it “would place consumers at greater risk of identity theft, especially consumers in states that have not enacted” laws that complement the Rules. Instead, the response letter requests the FTC modify the Rules to “ensure their continued relevance” and “keep pace with the ingenuity of identity thieves.” The suggestions include: (i) that notices of changes to email addresses and cell phone numbers be sent to both the prior and updated addresses and phone numbers, an expansion of the current use of mailing addresses; (ii) the encouragement of more current forms of authentication, including multi-factor authentication, to replace examples which imply that knowledge-based authentication by itself is sufficient; and (iii) the addition of new suspicious activity examples related to the use of an account, such as a covered account accessed by unknown devices or IP addresses, an unauthorized user unsuccessfully trying to guess account passwords through multiple attempts, and attempts by foreign IP addresses to access multiple accounts in a close period of time.