IIB 

115TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 5192 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

APRIL 18, 2018 

Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance 

AN ACT 

To authorize the Commissioner of Social Security to provide 

confirmation of fraud protection data to certain permitted entities, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 


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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Protecting Children 

3 from Identity Theft Act’’. 

4 SEC. 2. REDUCING IDENTITY FRAUD. 

5 (a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this section is to re6 duce the prevalence of synthetic identity fraud, which 

7 disproportionally affects vulnerable populations, such as 

8 minors and recent immigrants, by facilitating the valida9 tion by permitted entities of fraud protection data, pursu10 ant to electronically received consumer consent, through 

11 use of a database maintained by the Commissioner. 

12 (b) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 

13 (1) COMMISSIONER.—The term ‘‘Commis14 sioner’’ means the Commissioner of the Social Secu15 rity Administration. 

16 (2) FINANCIAL INSTITUTION.—The term ‘‘fi17 nancial institution’’ has the meaning given the term 

18 in section 509 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 

19 U.S.C. 6809). 

20 (3) FRAUD PROTECTION DATA.—The term 

21 ‘‘fraud protection data’’ means a combination of the 

22 following information with respect to an individual: 

23 (A) The name of the individual (including 

24 the first name and any family forename or sur25 name of the individual). 


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1 (B) The Social Security account number of 

2 the individual. 

3 (C) The date of birth (including the 

4 month, day, and year) of the individual. 

5 (4) PERMITTED ENTITY.—The term ‘‘permitted 

6 entity’’ means a financial institution or a service 

7 provider, subsidiary, affiliate, agent, contractor, or 

8 assignee of a financial institution. 

9 (c) EFFICIENCY.— 

10 (1) RELIANCE ON EXISTING METHODS.—The 

11 Commissioner shall evaluate the feasibility of mak12 ing modifications to any database that is in exist13 ence as of the date of enactment of this Act or a 

14 similar resource such that the database or re15 source— 

16 (A) is reasonably designed to effectuate the 

17 purpose of this section; and 

18 (B) meets the requirements of subsection 

19 (d). 

20 (2) EXECUTION.—The Commissioner shall es21 tablish a system to carry out subsection (a), in ac22 cordance with section 1106 of the Social Security 

23 Act. In doing so, the Commissioner shall make the 

24 modifications necessary to any database that is in 

25 existence as of the date of enactment of this Act or 


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1 similar resource, or develop a database or similar re2 source. 

3 (d) PROTECTION OF VULNERABLE CONSUMERS.— 

4 The database or similar resource described in subsection 

5 (c) shall— 

6 (1) compare fraud protection data provided in 

7 an inquiry by a permitted entity against such infor8 mation maintained by the Commissioner in order to 

9 confirm (or not confirm) the validity of the informa10 tion provided, and in such a manner as to deter 

11 fraudulent use of the database or similar resource; 

12 (2) be scalable and accommodate reasonably an13 ticipated volumes of verification requests from per14 mitted entities with commercially reasonable uptime 

15 and availability; and 

16 (3) allow permitted entities to submit— 

17 (A) one or more individual requests elec18 tronically for real-time machine-to-machine (or 

19 similar functionality) accurate responses; and 

20 (B) multiple requests electronically, such 

21 as those provided in a batch format, for accu22 rate electronic responses within a reasonable pe23 riod of time from submission, not to exceed 24 

24 hours. 


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1 (e) CERTIFICATION REQUIRED.—Before providing 

2 confirmation of fraud protection data to a permitted enti3 ty, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Commissioner 

4 has a certification from the permitted entity that is dated 

5 not more than 2 years before the date on which that con6 firmation is provided that includes the following declara7 tions: 

8 (1) The entity is a permitted entity. 

9 (2) The entity is in compliance with this sec10 tion. 

11 (3) The entity is, and will remain, in compli12 ance with its privacy and data security requirements, 

13 as described in title V of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley 

14 Act (15 U.S.C. 6801 et seq.) and as required by the 

15 Commissioner, with respect to information the entity 

16 receives from the Commissioner pursuant to this sec17 tion. 

18 (4) The entity will retain sufficient records to 

19 demonstrate its compliance with its certification and 

20 this section for a period of not less than 2 years. 

21 (f) CONSUMER CONSENT.— 

22 (1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other 

23 provision of law or regulation, a permitted entity 

24 may submit a request to the database or similar re25 source described in subsection (c) only— 


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1 (A) pursuant to the written, including elec2 tronic, consent received by a permitted entity 

3 from the individual who is the subject of the re4 quest; and 

5 (B) in connection with any circumstance 

6 described in section 604 of the Fair Credit Re7 porting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681b). 

8 (2) ELECTRONIC CONSENT REQUIREMENTS.— 

9 For a permitted entity to use the consent of an indi10 vidual received electronically pursuant to paragraph 

11 (1)(A), the permitted entity must obtain the individ12 ual’s electronic signature, as defined in section 106 

13 of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National 

14 Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. 7006). Permitted entities 

15 must develop and use an electronic signature process 

16 in accordance with all Federal laws and require17 ments as designated by the Commissioner. 

18 (3) EFFECTUATING ELECTRONIC CONSENT.— 

19 No provision of law or requirement, including section 

20 552a of title 5, United States Code, shall prevent 

21 the use of electronic consent for purposes of this 

22 subsection or for use in any other consent based 

23 verification under the discretion of the Commis24 sioner. 

25 (g) COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT.— 


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1 (1) AUDITS AND MONITORING.— 

2 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner— 

3 (i) shall conduct audits and moni4 toring to— 

5 (I) ensure proper use by per6 mitted entities of the database or 

7 similar resource described in sub8 section (c); and 

9 (II) deter fraud and misuse by 

10 permitted entities with respect to the 

11 database or similar resource described 

12 in subsection (c); and 

13 (ii) may terminate services for any 

14 permitted entity that prevents or refuses to 

15 allow the Commissioner to carry out the 

16 activities described in clause (i) and may 

17 terminate or suspend services for any per18 mitted entity as necessary to enforce any 

19 violation of this section or of any certifi20 cation made under this section. 

21 (2) ENFORCEMENT.— 

22 (A) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any 

23 other provision of law, including the matter pre24 ceding paragraph (1) of section 505(a) of the 

25 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6805(a)), 


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1 any violation of this section and any certifi2 cation made under this section shall be enforced 

3 in accordance with paragraphs (1) through (7) 

4 of such section 505(a) by the agencies described 

5 in those paragraphs. 

6 (B) RELEVANT INFORMATION.—Upon dis7 covery by the Commissioner of any violation of 

8 this section or any certification made under this 

9 section, the Commissioner shall forward any 

10 relevant information pertaining to that violation 

11 to the appropriate agency described in subpara12 graph (A) for evaluation by the agency for pur13 poses of enforcing this section. 

14 (h) RECOVERY OF COSTS.— 

15 (1) IN GENERAL.— 

16 (A) IN GENERAL.—Amounts obligated to 

17 carry out this section shall be fully recovered 

18 from the users of the database or verification 

19 system by way of advances, reimbursements, 

20 user fees, or other recoveries as determined by 

21 the Commissioner. The funds recovered under 

22 this paragraph shall be deposited as an offset23 ting collection to the account providing appro24 priations for the Social Security Administration, 


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1 to be used for the administration of this section 

2 without fiscal year limitation. 

3 (B) PRICES FIXED BY COMMISSIONER.— 

4 The Commissioner shall establish the amount to 

5 be paid by the users under this paragraph, in6 cluding the costs of any services or work per7 formed, such as any appropriate upgrades, 

8 maintenance, and associated direct and indirect 

9 administrative costs, in support of carrying out 

10 the purposes described in this section, by reim11 bursement or in advance as determined by the 

12 Commissioner. The amount of such prices shall 

13 be periodically adjusted by the Commissioner to 

14 ensure that amounts collected are sufficient to 

15 fully offset the cost of the administration of this 

16 section. 

17 (2) INITIAL DEVELOPMENT.—The Commis18 sioner shall not begin development of a verification 

19 system to carry out this section until the Commis20 sioner determines that amounts equal to at least 50 

21 percent of program start-up costs have been col22 lected under paragraph (1). 

23 (3) EXISTING RESOURCES.—The Commissioner 

24 of Social Security may use funds designated for in25 formation technology modernization to carry out this 


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1 section, but in all cases shall be fully reimbursed 

2 under paragraph (1)(A). 

3 (4) ANNUAL REPORT.—The Commissioner of 

4 Social Security shall annually submit to the Com5 mittee on Ways and Means of the House of Rep6 resentatives and the Committee on Finance of the 

7 Senate a report on the amount of indirect costs to 

8 the Social Security Administration arising as a re9 sult of the implementation of this section. 

Passed the House of Representatives April 17, 2018. 

Attest: KAREN L. HAAS, 

Clerk. 


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