The powerful Finance Committee of the California State Assembly has killed an identity-theft bill that would have slowly phased out the use of Social Security numbers as personal identifiers in the state.
Besides forcing banks, colleges, health insurers and others in the state to stop printing a person’s Social Security number on identification cards and in a broad variety of mailings, the measure would have banned organizations from requiring people to use their Social Security number to log onto their Internet site.
The measure, which the Senate approved in June, also would have allowed people to “freeze” access to their credit reports and prevent them from being sold to anyone without written permission.
Although the panel, chaired by Assemblyman Louis Papan has 14 members, only three chose vote for the measure, with one opposed and 10 refusing to cast a vote.
Opponents of the measure argued against its passage saying that it was too difficult for the state to enforce. They also noted that there are several bills pending in Congress that would impose severe limitations on the use of Social Security numbers as personal identifiers.
The Direct Marketing Association, which had been closely monitoring the bill’s progress though the legislature, welcomed the Assembly panel’s action.
The DMA, said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president, government affairs, “is working with members of Congress to see if we can find a way of protecting the integrity of a person’s Social Security Number on a national level while making sure that remote sellers know the person they are dealing with is who they claim to be while ensuring the security of their Social Security Numbers.”
The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Debra Bowen attributed the Assembly panel’s rejection of her bill to the intense lobbying efforts of the credit reporting bureaus “that make money by selling reports to credit issuers and flood mailboxes with pre-approved offers that criminals love to steal.”
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