I 
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2035
To prevent identity theft, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 8, 2003
Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon (for herself, Mr. LATOURETTE, Mr. FRANK of Massa-
chusetts, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. BROWN of Ohio, Ms. NORTON, Mr. KEN-
NEDY of Rhode Island, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Mr. BAIRD, Mr. 
FROST, Ms. LOFGREN, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. KANJORSKI, Ms. CARSON 
of Indiana, Mr. SHERMAN, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. WEXLER, Mr. 
PLATTS, Mr. GILLMOR, Mr. BAKER, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. CLAY, Ms. 
BERKLEY, Mrs. LOWEY, Mrs. MALONEY, Mr. UDALL of Colorado, Mr. 
KIND, Ms. LEE, Mr. MOORE, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. LYNCH, Mr. HASTINGS 
of Florida, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. EMANUEL, 
Mr. HOLDEN, Mr. KILDEE, Ms. WATSON, Mr. ACKERMAN, Ms. 
MILLENDER-MCDONALD, Ms. WATERS, Mr. SOUDER, Mr. TIBERI, and 
Mr. GONZALEZ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To prevent identity theft, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Identity Theft and Fi-
nancial Privacy Protection Act of 2003’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds that—
(1) the crime of identity theft has become one 
of the major law enforcement challenges of the new 
economy, as vast quantities of sensitive, personal in-
formation are now vulnerable to criminal intercep-
tion and misuse; 
(2) according to the Attorney General, ‘‘in addi-
tion to the credit card and financial fraud crimes 
often committed, identity theft is a major facilitator 
of international terrorism’’; 
(3) a number of indicators reveal that, despite 
increased public awareness of the crime, the inci-
dents of identity theft continue to rise; 
(4) 1,000,000 consumers annually call the 
Fraud Victim Assistance Department of one national 
consumer reporting agency, a number that almost 
doubled from 1997 to 2001; 
(5) between January and December of 2002, 
the complaint database operated by the Federal 
Trade Commission received 380,103 consumer fraud 
and identity theft complaints, with reported losses 
from fraud of more than $343,000,000; 
(6) allegations of identity theft reported to the 
fraud hotline of the Social Security Administration
increased from 11,058 in fiscal year 1998 to 46,480 
in fiscal year 2000; 
(7) in its fiscal year 2000 annual report, the 
Postal Inspection Service noted that identity theft is 
a growing trend and the agency’s investigations of 
such crimes has ‘‘increased by 67 percent since last 
year’’; 
(8) an integral part of many identity crimes in-
volves the interception of personal financial data or 
the fraudulent acquisition of credit cards and other 
financial products in another person’s name; 
(9) identity theft is an act that violates the pri-
vacy of our citizens and ruins their good names, vic-
tims can suffer restricted access to credit and dimin-
ished employment opportunities, and may spend 
years repairing damage to credit histories; 
(10) the resources available to identity theft vic-
tims are inadequate, and both private sector and 
Federal agencies should provide better and more 
sympathetic assistance to such victims; and 
(11) credit reporting agencies and issuers of 
credit should have uniform reporting requirements 
and effective fraud alerts to assist identity theft vic-
tims in repairing and protecting their credit.
SEC. 3. IDENTITY THEFT PREVENTION. 
(a) CHANGES OF ADDRESS.—
(1) DUTY
OF
ISSUERS
OF
CREDIT.—Section 
132 of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1642) 
is amended—
(A) by inserting ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—’’ be-
fore ‘‘No credit’’; and 
(B) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(b) CONFIRMATION OF CHANGES OF ADDRESS.—If 
a card issuer receives a request for an additional credit 
card with respect to an existing credit account not later 
than 30 days after receiving notification of a change of 
address for that account, the card issuer shall—
‘‘(1) notify the cardholder of the request at 
both the new address and the former address in ac-
cordance with reasonable policies and procedures es-
tablished by the card issuer pursuant to regulations 
which the Board shall prescribe; and 
‘‘(2) provide to the cardholder a means of 
promptly reporting incorrect changes.’’. 
(2) DUTY
OF
CONSUMER
REPORTING
AGEN-
CIES.—Section 605 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act 
(15 U.S.C. 1681c) is amended by adding at the end 
the following: 
‘‘(g) NOTICE OF POTENTIAL FRAUD.—In any case 
in which a person has requested a consumer report relat-
ing to a consumer, and the request includes an address 
for the consumer that substantially differs from the most 
recent address in the file of the consumer, the consumer 
reporting agency shall—
‘‘(1) notify the requester of the discrepancy; 
and 
‘‘(2) reconcile or resolve any substantial vari-
ation between the most recent address in the file of 
the consumer at the agency and the address con-
tained in the request, in accordance with reasonable 
policies and procedures established by the consumer 
reporting agency.’’. 
(3) ENFORCEMENT.—
(A) FEDERAL
TRADE
COMMISSION.—Ex-
cept as provided in subparagraph (B), compli-
ance with section 132(b) of the Truth in Lend-
ing Act (as added by this subsection) shall be 
enforced by the Federal Trade Commission in 
the same manner and with the same power and 
authority as the Commission has under the 
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to enforce 
compliance with that Act. 
(B) 
OTHER
AGENCIES
IN
CERTAIN 
CASES.—
(i) IN
GENERAL.—Compliance with 
section 132(b) of the Truth in Lending Act
(as added by this subsection) shall be en-
forced under—
(I) section 8 of the Federal De-
posit Insurance Act, in the case of a 
card issuer that is—
(aa) a national bank or a 
Federal branch or Federal agen-
cy of a foreign bank, by the Of-
fice of the Comptroller of the 
Currency; 
(bb) a member bank of the 
Federal Reserve System (other 
than a national bank), a branch 
or agency of a foreign bank 
(other than a Federal branch, 
Federal agency, or insured State 
branch of a foreign bank), a com-
mercial lending company owned 
or controlled by a foreign bank, 
or 
an 
organization 
operating 
under section 25 or 25A of the 
Federal Reserve Act, by the
Board of Governors of the Fed-
eral Reserve System; 
(cc) a bank insured by the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Cor-
poration (other than a member of 
the Federal Reserve System or a 
national nonmember bank) or an 
insured State branch of a foreign 
bank, by the Board of Directors 
of the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation; and 
(dd) a savings association, 
the deposits of which are insured 
by the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation, by the Director of
the Office of Thrift Supervision; 
and 
(II) the Federal Credit Union 
Act, by the Administrator of the Na-
tional Credit Union Administration in 
the case of a card issuer that is a 
Federal credit union, as defined in 
that Act. 
(C) VIOLATIONS TREATED AS VIOLATIONS 
OF OTHER LAWS.—For the purpose of the exer-
cise by any agency referred to in this paragraph 
of its powers under any Act referred to in this 
paragraph, a violation of section 132(b) of the 
Truth in Lending Act (as added by this sub-
section) shall be deemed to be a violation of a 
requirement imposed under that Act. In addi-
tion to its powers under any provision of law 
specifically referred to in subparagraph (A) or 
(B), each of the agencies referred to in those 
subparagraphs may exercise, for the purpose of 
enforcing compliance with section 132(b) of the 
Truth in Lending Act (as added by this sub-
section), any other authority conferred on such 
agency by law. 
(b) FRAUD ALERTS.—Section 605 of the Fair Credit 
Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c) is amended by adding 
at the end the following: 
‘‘(h) FRAUD ALERTS.—
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Upon the request of a con-
sumer who expresses a suspicion that the consumer 
has been or is about to become a victim of fraud or 
related crime, and upon receiving proper identifica-
tion, a consumer reporting agency shall include a 
fraud alert in the file of that consumer.
‘‘(2) NOTICE TO USERS.—A consumer reporting 
agency shall notify each person procuring consumer 
credit information with respect to a consumer of the 
existence of a fraud alert in the file of that con-
sumer, regardless of whether a full credit report, 
credit score, or summary report is requested. 
‘‘(3) PENALTIES.—Any user of a consumer re-
port who issues or extends credit in the name of the 
consumer to a person other than the consumer with-
out attempting to comply with the preauthorization 
procedures contained in a fraud alert in effect for 
such consumer shall be in violation of this section. 
‘‘(4) DEFINITION.—In this subsection, the term 
‘fraud alert’ means a clear and conspicuous state-
ment in the file of a consumer that notifies all pro-
spective users of a consumer report made with re-
spect to that consumer that the consumer does not 
authorize the issuance or extension of credit in the 
name of the consumer unless— 
‘‘(A) the issuer of such credit first obtains 
verbal authorization from the consumer at a 
telephone number designated by the consumer; 
or 
‘‘(B) the issuer of such credit utilizes an-
other reasonable means of communication to
obtain the express preauthorization of the con-
sumer. 
‘‘(5) EXCEPTIONS.—
‘‘(A) RESELLERS.—
‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The provisions of 
this subsection shall not apply to a con-
sumer reporting agency that acts as a re-
seller of information by assembling and 
merging information contained in the data-
base of another consumer reporting agency 
or multiple consumer reporting agencies, 
and does not maintain a permanent data-
base of the assembled or merged informa-
tion from which new consumer reports are 
produced. 
‘‘(ii) LIMITATION.—A reseller of as-
sembled or merged information shall pre-
serve any fraud alert placed on a consumer 
report by another consumer reporting 
agency. 
‘‘(B) EXEMPT
INSTITUTIONS.—The re-
quirement under this subsection to place a 
fraud alert in a consumer file shall not apply 
to—
‘‘(i) a check services company, which 
issues authorizations for the purpose of ap-
proving or processing negotiable instru-
ments, electronic funds transfers, or simi-
lar methods of payments; or 
‘‘(ii) a demand deposit account infor-
mation service company, which issues re-
ports regarding account closures due to 
fraud, substantial overdrafts, ATM abuse, 
or similar negative information regarding a 
consumer, to inquiring banks or other fi-
nancial institutions for use only in review-
ing a consumer request for a demand de-
posit account at the inquiring bank or fi-
nancial institution.’’. 
(c) RULES ON COMPLAINT REFERRAL, INVESTIGA-
TIONS, AND INQUIRIES.—Not later than 365 days after 
the date of enactment of this Act, the Federal Trade Com-
mission (in this subsection referred to as the ‘‘Commis-
sion’’) shall prescribe rules in accordance with section 553 
of title 5, United States Code—
(1) to develop procedures for referral of con-
sumer complaints about identity theft and fraud 
alerts between and among the consumer reporting 
agencies and the Commission; and
(2) to develop a model form and standard pro-
cedures to be used by consumers who are victims of 
identity fraud for contacting and informing creditors 
and consumer reporting agencies of the fraud. 
SEC. 4. TRUNCATION OF CREDIT CARD AND DEBIT CARD 
ACCOUNT NUMBERS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in this section, 
no person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or 
limited liability company that accepts credit cards or debit 
cards for the transaction of business shall print more than 
the last 4 digits of the credit card account number or the 
expiration date upon any receipt provided to the card-
holder at the point of the sale or transaction. 
(b) LIMITATION.—This section applies only to re-
ceipts that are electronically printed, and does not apply 
to transactions in which the sole means of recording the 
person’s credit card or debit card account number is by 
handwriting or by an imprint or copy of the credit card 
or debit card. 
(c) DEFINITIONS.—For purposes of this section, the 
following definitions shall apply: 
(1) CREDIT CARD.—The term ‘‘credit card’’ has 
the same meaning as in section 103(k) of the Truth 
in Lending Act.
(2) DEBIT
CARD.—The term ‘‘debit card’’ 
means any card issued by a financial institution to 
a consumer for use in initiating electronic fund 
transfers (as defined in section 903(6) of the Elec-
tronic Fund Transfer Act) from the account of the 
consumer at such financial institution for the pur-
pose of transferring money between accounts or ob-
taining money, property, labor, or services. 
(d) EFFECTIVE DATE.—This section shall become ef-
fective on—
(1) January 1, 2007, with respect to any cash 
register or other machine or device that electroni-
cally prints receipts for credit card transactions that 
is in use before January 1, 2005; and 
(2) January 1, 2005, with respect to any cash 
register or other machine or device that electroni-
cally prints receipts for credit card transactions that 
is first put into use on or after such date. 
SEC. 5. FREE REPORTS ANNUALLY. 
Section 612(c) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 
U.S.C. 1681j(c)) is amended to read as follows: 
‘‘(c) FREE ANNUAL DISCLOSURE.—Upon the request 
of the consumer, a consumer reporting agency shall make
all disclosures pursuant to section 609 once during any 
12-month period without charge to the consumer.’’.
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