Federal Trade Commission 

Overview of the 

Identity Theft Program

October 1998 – September 2003

September 2003

REPORT
1 Pub. L. No. 105-318, 112 Stat. 3007 (1998) (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1028).

2

Id. at 3010. 

1

FTC Identity Theft Program

In 1998, Congress enacted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (“the Identity

Theft Act” or “the Act”),1 directing the Federal Trade Commission to establish the federal

government’s central repository for identity theft complaints and to provide victim assistance and

consumer education. Specifically, Congress directed the Commission to establish procedures to: (1)

log the receipt of complaints by victims of identity theft; (2) provide identity theft victims with

informational materials; and (3) refer complaints to appropriate entities, including the major national

consumer reporting agencies and law enforcement agencies.2 The attached timeline illustrates significant

milestones in the Commission’s Identity Theft Program. Figure 1. The core initiatives of the program

seek to assist victims, educate consumers, law enforcement and the business community, and maintain

and disseminate information from the Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse (“Clearinghouse”).

 I. Assisting Identity Theft Victims 

On November 1, 1999, the Commission began collecting complaints from consumers via a tollfree telephone number, 1-877-ID THEFT (438-4338). From conception through 2002, the number of

complaints the FTC received doubled every year. From January through July of this year, the

Commission already has received over 131,000 complaints with a projected total of 210,000 by year’s

end. Figure 2. Callers to the telephone hotline receive counseling from specially trained personnel who

provide general information about identity theft, help guide victims through the steps needed to resolve

the problems resulting from the misuse of their identities, and advise victims having particular problems

about their rights under relevant consumer credit laws. If the investigation and resolution of the identity

theft falls under the jurisdiction of another regulatory agency that has a program in place to assist

consumers, callers also are referred to those agencies. 

The FTC’s identity theft website, located at www.consumer.gov/idtheft, provides equivalent

service for those who prefer the immediacy of an online interaction. The site contains a secure

complaint form, which allows victims to enter their identity theft information for input into the

Clearinghouse. Victims also can read and download the resources necessary for reclaiming their credit

record and good name. One of these resources is the FTC’s tremendously successful consumer

education booklet, Identity Theft: When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name. The 26-page

booklet, now in its fourth edition, comprehensively covers a range of topics, including the first steps to

take for victims, how to correct credit-related and other problems that may result from identity theft,

tips for those having trouble getting a police report taken, and advice on ways to protect personal

information. It also describes federal and state resources available to victims who may be having

particular problems as a result of their identity theft. Last year, the FTC released a Spanish language
3 Other government agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the SEC, and

the FDIC also have printed and distributed copies of Identity Theft: When Bad Things Happen to

Your Good Name. 

2

version of the Identity Theft booklet, Robo de Identidad: Algo malo puede pasarle a su buen

nombre. The FTC alone has distributed more than 1.2 million copies of the booklet since its release in

February 2000.3

 II. Outreach and Education 

The Identity Theft Act also directed the FTC to provide information to consumers about

identity theft. Recognizing that law enforcement and private industry are important in helping consumers

both to minimize their risk and to recover from identity theft, the FTC expanded its mission of outreach

and education to include these sectors.

A. Consumers 

The FTC has lead coordination with other government agencies and organizations in the

development and dissemination of comprehensive consumer education materials for victims of identity

theft and those concerned with preventing this crime. The FTC’s extensive consumer and business

education campaign includes print materials, media mailings, and radio and television interviews. The

FTC also maintains the identity theft website, which includes the publications and links to testimony,

reports, press releases, identity theft-related state laws, and other resources. 

B. Law Enforcement 

Because law enforcement at the state and local level can provide significant practical

assistance to victims, the FTC places a premium on outreach to these agencies. Following the

successful transfer of identity theft complaint records from the state of Georgia into the Clearinghouse,

the staff joined with North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper to send letters to every other

Attorney General to explain the FTC’s identity theft program and how each Attorney General could use

the resources of the program to better assist residents of his or her state. The letter encourages the

Attorney General to link to the consumer information and complaint form on the FTC’s website and to

let residents know about the hotline, stresses the importance of the Clearinghouse as a central database,

and describes all of the educational materials that the Attorney General can distribute to residents.

Other outreach initiatives include participation in a “Roll Call” video and CD-ROM resource

guide produced by the Secret Service, which will be sent to over 40,000 law enforcement departments

across the country to instruct officers on identity theft, investigative resources, and victim assistance.
4 See ID Theft: When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name: Hearing Before the

Subcomm. on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information of the Senate Judiciary

Comm. 106th Cong. (2000) (statement of Mrs. Maureen Mitchell, Identity Theft Victim).

3

C. Industry

(1) Victim Assistance. Identity theft victims spend significant time and effort

restoring their good name and financial records. As a result, the FTC devotes substantial resources to

working with the private sector to improve victim assistance. One such initiative arose from the

burdensome requirement that victims complete a different fraud affidavit for each different creditor with

whom the identity thief had opened an account.4 To reduce that burden, the FTC worked with industry

and consumer advocates to create a standard form for victims to use in resolving identity theft debts. 

From its release in August 2001 through May 2003, the FTC has distributed more than 293,000 print

copies of the ID Theft Affidavit. There have also been nearly 370,000 hits to the Web version. The

affidavit is available in both English and Spanish. 

The three major credit reporting agencies (“CRAs”) recently launched a new initiative, the “joint

fraud alert.” After receiving a request from an identity theft victim for the placement of a fraud alert on

his or her consumer report and for a copy of that report, each CRA now shares that request with the

other two CRAs, thereby eliminating the requirement that the victim contact each of the three major

CRAs separately. 

This fall, the FTC will begin a one-year pilot program to refer complaints to the CRAs. The

FTC will forward to the CRAs certain complaints reported to the FTC that contain issues related to

credit report accuracy. The CRAs will review the complaints and act as necessary or appropriate to

resolve the dispute.

(2) Information Security Breaches. The FTC also is working with institutions

that maintain personal information to identify ways to help keep that information safe from identity theft. 

Last year, the FTC invited representatives from financial institutions, credit issuers, universities, and

retailers to an informal roundtable discussion of how to prevent unauthorized access to personal

information in employee and customer records. The FTC will soon publish a self-assessment guide to

make businesses and organizations of all sizes more aware of how they manage personal information

and to aid them in assessing their security protocols. This guide will be available on the identity theft

website along with a business kit providing steps to take in the event of an information compromise.

 III. Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse

The final mandate for the FTC under the Identity Theft Act was to log the complaints from

victims of identity theft and refer those complaints to law enforcement agencies. Before launching this

complaint system, the Commission met with law enforcement and regulatory agencies to ensure that it
5 The FTC also provides a “Hot Search” investigative assistance function. In situations

where a law enforcement officer’s search is unusually complex and the timeframe is tight, they are able

to send us an email at idtsearch@ftc.gov, and we will assist them using our more powerful in-house

search tools, as time permits.

6 The referral program complements the regular use of the database by all law enforcers

from their desk top computers. 

4

would meet the needs of criminal law enforcement. Access to the Clearinghouse via the FTC’s secure

Web site became available in July, 2000. To ensure that the database operates as a national

clearinghouse for complaints, the FTC has solicited complaints from other sources. For example, in

February 2001, the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General (SSA-OIG) began

providing the FTC with complaints from its fraud hotline, significantly enriching the FTC’s database. 

Since the inception of the Clearinghouse, more than 670 law enforcement agencies, from the

federal to the local level, have signed up for access to the database. Within those agencies, over 4,200

individual law enforcement agents can access the system from their desktop computers twenty-four

hours a day, seven days a week. The Commission continually seeks even greater participation,

especially in places with high incidence of identity theft.

One of the goals of the Clearinghouse and the FTC’s identity theft program is to provide

support for identity theft prosecutions nationwide. Last year, in an effort to further expand the use of

the Clearinghouse among law enforcement, the FTC, in cooperation with the Department of Justice and

the United States Secret Service, initiated a full day identity theft training seminar for state and local law

enforcement officers. To date, sessions have been held in Washington, D.C., Des Moines, Chicago,

San Francisco, Las Vegas, Dallas, Phoenix, New York, and Seattle. The final training seminar

currently planned for this year will be in Texas. The FTC also helped the Kansas and Missouri offices

of the U.S. Attorney and State Attorney General conduct a training seminar in Kansas City. More than

1000 officers have attended these seminars, representing more than 280 different agencies. 

 The FTC staff also helps develop case leads.5 Now in its second year, the Commission runs

an identity theft case referral program in coordination with the United States Secret Service. The Secret

Service has assigned a special agent to the Commission to assist with identity theft issues and has

provided the services of its Criminal Research Specialists.6 Together, the FTC and Secret Service staff

develop preliminary investigative reports by examining significant patterns of identity theft activity in the

database and refining the data through the use of additional investigative resources. Thereupon, the

staff refer the investigative reports to appropriate Financial Crimes Task Forces and other law

enforcers located throughout the country for further investigation and potential prosecution. 

The Clearinghouse provides a much fuller picture of the nature, prevalence, and trends of
7

 Charts that summarize 2002 data from the Clearinghouse can be found at

www.consumer.gov/idtheft and www.consumer.gov/sentinel.

8 The Commission testified on July 9 and 10, 2003 before the House Committee on

Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs respectively. The

testimony can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/07/fcratest.html and 

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/07/fcrasenatetest.htm.

9 The Commission supports the Treasury Department’s proposals, and has recommended

two additional proposals regarding the duty of furnishers to respond to disputes directed to them by

consumers and the clarification of the application of the FCRA to investigations of employee

misconduct.

5

identity theft than was previously available.7 Analyzing the data has allowed the FTC to pinpoint

suspects, compile information on the forms that identity theft takes, and direct outreach efforts. It has

not, however, allowed the FTC to estimate the actual incidence of identity theft, or assess its duration

or effect on victims over time. In part, that is because victims often contact the FTC soon after they

discover that their information has been misappropriated, but before they are fully aware of the extent

of the harm caused by the theft of their information. In addition, as a victim-reported system, the FTC

has no way to ensure that the relative proportions of the various categories of identity theft reported to

the Clearinghouse accurately represent the occurrence of those forms in the population as a whole. To

address these issues, the FTC contracted with Synovate, Inc., to conduct a broad-based survey on

identity theft. The results of this work can be found in the Survey Study accompanying this report.

Legislative Proposals

On January 1, 2004, the provisions of Section 624 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”)

which set out certain uniform national standards, will expire unless Congress takes steps to extend them

or make them permanent. The Commission has testified at hearings8 in support of national uniform

standards as well as additional amendments to the FCRA and other statutes that would improve

protections for consumers and, in particular, victims of identity theft.9 Proposals particularly directed at

addressing identity theft include:

• National fraud alert system - The Commission supports standardizing the means by which

consumers who reasonably suspect they have been or may be victimized by identity theft, or

who are military personnel on active duty away from home, can place an alert on their credit

files. 

• Identity theft account blocking - This proposal would require CRAs immediately to cease

reporting (“block”) allegedly fraudulent account information on consumer reports when the

consumer submits a police report or similar document, unless there is reason to believe the

report is false. 

• Truncation of credit and debit card receipts - In many instances, identity theft results from
6

thieves obtaining access to card numbers on receipts. This source of fraud could be reduced

by requiring merchants to truncate account numbers on the receipt. 

• Enhanced criminal penalties for identity theft - One way to deter identity theft is to increase

the likelihood of prosecution. Legislation proposed last year would create a new crime of

“aggravated identity theft,” with stiff penalties and streamlined proof provisions.

• “Red flag” indicators of identity theft - This proposal would direct banking regulators to

identify and maintain a list of “red flag” indicators of identity theft for use in their oversight of

financial institutions they regulate. 

• Information sharing by debt collectors and creditors with identity theft victims - This

proposal would obligate debt collectors and creditors to provide victims with information about

accounts opened by the identity thieves.

• Keeping fraudulent debt from being transferred or reported - This proposal would require

a debt collector to notify the creditor when it learns that an account it is collecting is fraudulent. 

In turn, a creditor, once it learns that an identity theft caused a debt, would be prohibited from

selling or transferring the debt for collection, and from reintroducing the fraudulent information

into a consumer report. 

2004 and Beyond

The Commission will work vigorously to develop new initiatives to reduce or mitigate the

impact of identity theft. In particular, the Commission will expand its partnerships with law enforcement

and other government agencies to promote the investigation and prosecution of identity thieves, to

capture more data on identity theft, and to provide more extensive analysis of such data. The

Commission and its partners will continue to conduct law enforcement training seminars and examine

other initiatives to support aggressive enforcement. Finally, the Commission will continue to work with

industry to develop best practices in information security and fraud prevention as well as new initiatives

to assist victims. The data from the Synovate Survey will improve the Commission’s ability on how best

to focus its efforts in all of these areas.
0

50

100

150

200

250

Thousands of Victims

Number of Complaints Entered Into the IDT Data Clearinghouse

1999-2003

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Total: 

1,380

Total: 31,117

Total: 86,198

Total: 161,819

Projected Total: 

210,000

Projected Cumulative 

Complaint Count 1999-2003: 490,000

Projection

January 1 – July 31 

Total: 131,022 

Figure 1

(January 1 – July 31)

Federal Trade Commission 

Created September 2003
1998 1999

IDT Act 

Passed

OctApr

FTC Issues 

Consumer Alert on 

What to Do if 

Your Identity is Stolen

FTC Hosts Workshop on 

Consumer Assistance 

Provisions of 

the IDT Act

Oct

IDT Data Clearinghouse 

Begins Collecting Data 

www.consumer.gov/idtheft

Site Launched

Nov

1-877-438-4338 

(ID Theft) 

Launched

TIMELINE of FTC’s IDENTITY THEFT (IDT) PROGRAM 

1998-1999

Figure 2(A)

Federal Trade Commission 

Created September 2003
2000

Feb

FTC Participates in 

Treasury 

Department’s 

National Summit 

on IDT

Mar

Jul

Oct

International 

Association of 

Chiefs of Police 

Adopts Resolution 

in Support of 

Writing Reports on 

IDT Crime and 

Referring Victims 

to FTC Hotline

Nov

DOJ and 

U.S. Secret Service 

Host Workshop on 

Investigating and 

Prosecuting IDT

Dec

IDT Data 

Clearinghouse 

Available to Law 

Enforcement 

via FTC’s Network 

IDT Homepage on 

Consumer Sentinel 

Launched 

IDT Hotline Hours 

Expanded to 

9am-8pm EST

FTC Hosts 

Workshop on 

IDT Victim 

Assistance

SSA-OIG Hosts 

Workshop on 

Preventing IDT

IDT 

Consumer 

Information 

Booklet 

Published

Online 

Complaint 

Form for IDT 

Launched 

Feb

SSA-OIG Data 

First Transferred 

into 

IDT Data 

Clearinghouse

U.S. Secret Service–FTC 

Joint Law Enforcement 

Referral Partnership 

Initiated –

Agent Detailed

May

First 

Preliminary 

Investigative 

Report (PIR) 

Referred to 

Enforcement 

Officers

Jun

IDT 

Affidavit 

Form 

Launched 

on Internet

Aug

2001

TIMELINE of FTC’s IDENTITY THEFT (IDT) PROGRAM 

2000-2001

Figure 2(B)

Federal Trade Commission 

Created September 2003
2002 2003 

(includes scheduled events as of July 31)

Feb

Mar

AprJunAug

Spanish Language 

Translation of 

Consumer 

Information 

Booklet and 

Affidavit Press 

Event

“Hot Search” Email 

Address Unveiled for 

Consumer Sentinel Users, 

Providing Rapid Response 

to User Queries Regarding 

Addresses or Names

Chicago 

and 

Des 

Moines

San 

Francisco

Dallas

FTC, U.S. Secret Service, DOJ 

Provide 

Law Enforcement Training in:

Las 

Vegas 

(Nov)

Nov

DC 

(Mar)

IDT Theft Takedown 

Sweep Announced by 

DOJ and FTC 

(Ashcroft and Muris) 

FTC Hosts IDT 

Business Practices 

Roundtable

Georgia Governor’s 

Office of Consumer 

Affairs IDT Records 

First Transferred into 

IDT Data Clearinghouse

May

Oct

Phoenix

New 

York 

City

FTC, 

U.S. Secret Service, DOJ 

Provide 

Law Enforcement Training 

in:

Joint Fraud Alert 

Initiative 

Launched

MayJun

Aug

FTC Begins 

Complaint Sharing with 

3 Nationwide CRAs

Release of FTC and 

Synovate Reports

Seattle 

(Aug)

Apr

Sep

Oct

IDT Roll Call 

Video/CDROM 

Released

FTC, 

U.S. Attorney, 

Kansas and 

Missouri 

AG Offices 

Provide Law 

Enforcement 

Training in 

Kansas City

Texas 

City TBD 

(Oct)

TIMELINE of FTC’s IDENTITY THEFT (IDT) PROGRAM 

2002-2003

Figure 2(C)

Federal Trade Commission 

Created September 2003
Annual Count of 

Preliminary Investigative 

Reports Referred to 

Law Enforcement

2001

4

English: 

282,055

250+

2002

Spanish: 

25,471

English: 

641,695

500+

21

Cumulative Total of 

Law Enforcement 

Departments 

with Access to 

IDT Data Clearinghouse

Annual Count of 

Consumer Information 

Booklets and Affidavits 

Distributed1

2003

Spanish: 

44,600+

English: 

278,300+

670+

6

150+

English: 

156,706

2000

1The Spanish language translation of the consumer information booklet and affidavit was released February 2002. Also, since January 2003, most bulk requests have been fulfilled with 10 printed copies plus a 

copy of the CD-ROM version.

TIMELINE of FTC’s IDENTITY THEFT (IDT) PROGRAM 

2000-2003 Federal Trade Commission 

Created September 2003

Figure 2(D)

(January 1 – July 31)