Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and state Rep. Christopher R. Stone, D-East Hartford, today called on the state House and Senate to pass a bill allowing consumers to freeze their credit, preventing identity thieves from opening new credit card or other accounts, and requiring data collection companies to inform consumers when there is security breach.

The legislature's General Law Committee, which Stone co-chairs, is expected to approve the bill later today.

Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) President Roger Vann and Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG) Executive Director Christopher Phelps joined Blumenthal and Stone in praising the legislation and urging its adoption.

"This credit freeze is a virtual brick wall – a barricade against an insidious, invasive fraud," Blumenthal said. "Identity thieves now commonly prey on Connecticut consumers, penetrating personal information with impunity. A crook who cracks a data company's information vault can swiftly cripple a consumer's credit. A swift freeze can thwart identity theft before the damage is done. This bill also requires companies to immediately notify consumers when their personal financial information is compromised – the kind of law that informed California consumers about ChoicePoint – giving them the opportunity to freeze their credit."

"This legislation would help to protect consumers from potentially devastating identity or credit report theft," Stone said. "Residents should not have to worry about who they are exposing their private credit information to the next time they use a credit card or apply for a loan. A credit report freeze is an appropriate and relatively simple way to ensure that consumers' private information stays private and out of the hands of credit report thieves and identity stealers."

"Identity theft is one of the most serious and, unfortunately, most common threats to privacy in America today," Vann said. "A combination of lax protocols by data companies and inadequate state and federal regulation has made all Americans easy prey for fraud artists. The passage of SB 650 [this legislation] would represent a significant step forward in the battle to restore to Connecticut citizens a reasonable measure of control over their private information."

"Consumers need the security freeze tool to freeze identity thieves out of their credit files," Phelps said. "Combined with mandatory security breech notification, this will help to prevent Identity thieves from stealing the good credit of their victims."

Under the proposed legislation, consumers could limit credit report access to existing creditors. The freeze would allow consumers to authorize future release of their credit report to those creditors specified by the consumer.

The bogus purchase from ChoicePoint of personal financial data of about 145,000 consumers nationwide – including 5,952 Connecticut residents – last year underscores the need for the legislation, backers said. The theft occurred in October, but the company did not inform Connecticut victims until last month.

ChoicePoint told California authorities of the security breach thanks to a California law similar to the one that the General Law Committee is expected to approve today. At Blumenthal's request, ChoicePiont recently informed Connecticut residents whose private financial information was compromised.

Blumenthal is investigating the security breach at ChoicePoint and asking the company to outline steps to prevent future information thefts.