The Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2007 (Senate Bill 2168) was recently reported out of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to the full Senate. While the proposed law would enhance the rights of consumers who become victims of identity theft, it also addresses the rising trend of businesses targeted by identity thieves.

The proposed legislation is a bi-partisan effort to expand the rights of victims and eliminate certain hurdles to prosecution. For example, if personal information is taken from a computer, federal law does not offer a remedy unless the victim and perpetrator are located in different states (thereby invoking interstate commerce) and the damage to the computer exceeds $5000. If passed, the new law would eliminate both of these requirements.

The bill also proposes to allow identity theft victims to recover restitution for the time and money spent in restoring their credit. The current law provides no such express remedy.

Another dimension of the bill would be to provide remedies to businesses whose identities are impersonated in the hopes of capturing personal information from their customers. This is intended to reach those engaging in 'phishing' scams by sending email messages to a businesses' customers that look like they are from the actual business but, instead, redirect the user to a site not affiliated with the businesses where personal information is collected.

Whether this bill will pass through the Senate and, then, the House remains to be seen, however, if it does, it will provide some much needed federal remedies. To review the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2007 as reported to the Senate, click here and search Senate Bill 2168.

For more information about legislation or litigation involving technology, intellectual property protection of information technology assets or any other Information Technology law issue, contact your Miller Canfield attorney or Kathy Ossian, Leader of our Information Technology Team, or call her direct at 313.496.7644.