Identity Theft Restitution Act adds harsher federal penalties for identity thieves and hackers

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August 4th, 2008 - Posted by Joe

A bill which would enable harsher penalties for many forms of identity theft as well as give the federal government more jurisdiction in such cases is one step closer to being signed into law. The Identity Theft Restitution Act was amended to H.R. 5938 by the Senate last week and will return to the House of Representatives in its new form for a vote. If passed and signed into law, H.R. 5938 would:

• Give identity theft victims the ability to seek restitution from identity thieves for the time and money expended to restore their credit and remedy other negative impacts of identity theft.
• Give business who are impersonated by criminals the same protection as individuals under federal identity theft laws.
• Allow for federal prosecution of any crimes which involve stealing information from any computer regardless of location. Currently only interstate crimes where the criminal's computer is physically located in a different state then the victim's computer can fall under federal jurisdiction.
• Make it a felony to use spyware or keyloggers to damage ten or more computers regardless of the actual financial damages. Current laws have minimum financial damage qualifiers so that an identity thief that attempts to steal large volumes of personal information from multiple computers but is unsuccessful may simply get off with little or no sentence.
• Give the federal government jurisdiction over any theft of information from a computer regardless of which state the perpetrator and victim reside in. Current laws only allow for federal persecution if information is stolen from a computer that is located across state lines.
• Make it a felony to threaten to release or steal information from a computer. Current laws are only applicable if a criminal explicitly threatens to damage a computer or otherwise render it inoperable.
• Force the United States Sentencing Commission to re-evaluate and update its guidelines for identity theft and cyber crimes.

We believe that the Identity Theft Restitution Act is a strong stand against identity theft and cyber crimes which include the theft of information stored on personal and corporate computers. We will continue to monitoring the progress of this legislation and keep our readers up-to-date on its progress.

While these types of laws would enable harsher penalties for identity thieves and hackers, it is important to remember that they do little to actual prevent criminals in the first place. It is a good idea to protect your personal information both online and offline to prevent being victimized. To learn about services that will protect your identity read our guide to identity theft protection services. To learn more about software that will keep personal information on your PC safe, read our guide to Internet security software.

Identity Theft Protection, Internet Security Software
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