Spotlight: Chris Jay Hoofnagle
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In your paper you say that telecommunications services have the second highest incidences of identity theft. How do people experience identity theft through phone companies?

Consumers: Be on high alert

• Prevalence of ID theft • Identification/authentication • ID theft losses • Phone company ID theft • Benefits of banks reporting fraud • Protection for consumers • Weird impulsivity • Recent improvements

It looks as though individuals are opening up new accounts in others' names -- wireless accounts and landline accounts. This is largely confirmed by the FTC's numbers that shows that 8 percent of all new-accounts fraud is from telecommunications companies.

What will be the benefit of banks reporting their identity theft statistics?

Optimally there will be a market for competition to prevent identity theft and consumers will be able to choose banks based on identity theft risks.

Incidents per month (average of Jan., March, Sept. 2006) among institutions with high frequency of complaints