Freeze Fraudsters Out Of Your Credit File Coming Soon

Nick Clegg, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat Party, and David Howarth, MP for Cambridgeshire announced their new party policy on protections against identity fraud during a recent visit to Cambridge Labs to watch a CHIP and PIN attack demonstrated.

Credit rating companies are exempt from aspects of the Data Protection Act and can forward personal information about an individual’s financial history to companies without the subject’s consent.

Nick Clegg proposes to give individuals the rights to “freeze” their credit records, making it more difficult for fraudsters to impersonate others.

All they have to work out is how - and how to unfreeze it. Current identity methods will probably fail. Perhaps you could freeze/unfreeze it with your mobile phone?

It's certainly a step in the right direction.

Someone missed an opportunity to lead the way and now the government is doing it.

There might have been a better outcome for the credit rating providers if they'd chosen to show some ethical leadership like Nick.