[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 222 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 69970-69971]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-22849]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB 
Review; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'').

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The FTC intends to survey consumers to advance its 
understanding of the incidence of identity theft (``ID Theft'') and to 
allow the FTC to better serve the people who experience ID Theft and 
the law enforcement agencies that investigate and prosecute it. The 
survey is a follow-up to the FTC's ID Theft Survey conducted in March 
2003 and released in September 2003. Before gathering this information, 
the FTC is seeking public comments on its proposed consumer research. 
The information collection requirements described below will be 
submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (``OMB'') for review, 
as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (``PRA'') (44 U.S.C. 3501-
3520).

DATES: Comments on the proposed information requests must be received 
on or before December 19, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are invited to submit written comments. 
Comments should refer to ``ID Theft Survey: FTC File No. P034303'' to 
facilitate the organization of comments. A comment filed in paper form 
should include this reference both in the text and on the envelope and 
should be mailed or delivered, with two complete copies, to the 
following address: Federal Trade Commission/Office of the Secretary, 
Room H-135 (Annex E), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 
20580. Because paper mail in the Washington area and at the Commission 
is subject to delay, please consider submitting your comments in 
electronic form, as prescribed below. However, if the comment contains 
any material for which confidential treatment is requested, it must be 
filed in paper form, and the first page of the document must be clearly 
labeled ``Confidential.'' \1\ The FTC is requesting that any comment 
filed in paper form be sent by courier or overnight service, if 
possible.
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    \1\ Commission Rule 4.2(d), 16 CFR 4.2(d). The comment must be 
accompanied by an explicit request for confidential treatment, 
including the factual and legal basis for the request, and must 
identify the specific portions of the comment to be withheld from 
the public record. The request will be granted or denied by the 
Commission's General Counsel, consistent with applicable law and the 
public interest. See Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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    Comments filed in electronic form should be submitted by clicking 
on the following Web link: https://secure.commentworks.com/FTC-IDTSurvey and following the instructions on the Web-based form. To 
ensure that the Commission considers an electronic comment, you must 
file it on the Web-based form at https://secure.commentworks.com/FTC-IDTSurvey. If this notice appears at http://www.regulations.gov, you 
may also file an electronic comment through that Web site. The 
Commission will consider all comments that regulations.gov forwards to 
it.
    Comments should also be submitted to: Office of Management and 
Budget, Attention: Desk Officer for the Federal Trade Commission. 
Comments should be submitted via facsimile to (202) 395-

[[Page 69971]]

6974 because U.S. Postal Mail is subject to lengthy delays due to 
heightened security precautions.
    The FTC Act and other laws the Commission administers permit the 
collection of public comments to consider and use in this proceeding as 
appropriate. All timely and responsive public comments will be 
considered by the Commission and will be available to the public on the 
FTC Web site, to the extent practicable, at www.ftc.gov. As a matter of 
discretion, the FTC makes every effort to remove home contact 
information for individuals from the public comments it receives before 
placing those comments on the FTC Web site. More information, including 
routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC's 
privacy policy at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of the proposed collection of information, should be addressed 
to Joanna P. Crane, Program Manager, Federal Trade Commission ID Theft 
Program, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580. Telephone: 
(202) 326-3228.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In March 2003, OMB approved the FTC's 
request to conduct a survey on ID Theft and assigned OMB Control Number 
3084-0124. The FTC completed the consumer research in April 2003 and 
issued its report, Federal Trade Commission--Identity Theft Survey 
Report, in September 2003.\2\ On August, 25, 2005, the FTC published a 
Federal Register Notice seeking comments from the public concerning a 
new survey that would follow up on the 2003 survey. See 70 FR 49924. No 
comments were received. Pursuant to the OMB regulations that implement 
the PRA (5 CFR Part 1320), the FTC is providing this second opportunity 
for public comment while requesting that OMB reinstate the clearance 
for the survey. All comments should be filed as prescribed in the 
ADDRESSES section above, and must be received on or before December 19, 
2005.
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    \2\ The Report is available at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/09/synovatereport.pdf.
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Description of the Collection of Information and Proposed Use

    The FTC proposes to survey up to 5,000 consumers in order to gather 
specific information on the incidence of ID Theft in the general 
population. All information will be collected on a voluntary basis, and 
the identities of the consumers will remain confidential. The FTC has 
contracted with a consumer research firm to identify consumers and 
conduct the survey. The results will assist the FTC in determining the 
incidence of ID Theft in the general population, whether the type and 
frequency of ID Theft is changing, and how best to combat ID Theft.
    ID Theft has been the top consumer complaint reported to the FTC 
since calendar year 2000. The information collected by the survey will 
ensure that the FTC has accurate and timely information on the extent 
of ID Theft and its impact on victims. This information will be highly 
useful to Congress and others who often request statistical information 
on ID Theft from the FTC.
    The FTC intends to use a larger sample size than the 2003 survey to 
allow for a more in-depth analysis of the resulting data. The 
additional data points should produce statistically significant samples 
for particular types of fraud and particular demographic 
characteristics. The questions will be very similar to the 2003 survey 
so that the results from the 2003 survey can be used as a baseline for 
a time-series analysis.\3\ The FTC may conduct another follow-up survey 
in approximately two years.
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    \3\ The questionnaire for the 2003 survey is available as 
Appendix A to the Report.
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Estimated Hours Burden

    The consumer research firm will pretest the survey on approximately 
100 respondents to ensure that all questions are easily understood. 
This pretest will take approximately 3 minutes per person and 5 hours 
as a whole (100 respondents x 3 minutes each). Based on FTC staff's 
experience with the 2003 survey, the staff estimates that approximately 
12 percent of those interviewed will have experienced ID Theft within 
the last 5 years. Survey participants who have not experienced ID Theft 
in this period of time will only be asked the initial 4 to 5 survey 
questions. The staff expects that this will take less than 2 minutes. 
For those who have experienced ID Theft in the last 5 years, our 
experience with the earlier survey suggests that it will take about 12 
to 15 minutes to complete the survey. The staff therefore anticipates 
that the average time per survey participant will be approximately 3 
minutes. Answering the consumer survey will require approximately 250 
hours as a whole (5,000 respondents x 3 minutes each). Thus, cumulative 
total burden hours for the first year of the clearance will approximate 
255 hours.

Estimated Cost Burden

    The cost per respondent should be negligible. Participation is 
voluntary and will not require start-up, capital, or labor expenditures 
by respondents.

William Blumenthal,
General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 05-22849 Filed 11-17-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P