Focus on the Theft, Not the Identity

Hiawatha Bray writes in the Boston Globe about identity theft - and how attempting to protect personal information may not be the complete answer. He suggests a financial industry parallel to the "do not call" idea -- "do not issue."

These systems are far from perfect; credit card companies still lose millions to fraud. But confirming transactions is far easier than confirming identities. So Congress should take a look at a promising proposal called ''do-not-issue." Modeled after the ''do-not-call" list that has helped stamp out the curse of telemarketing, do-not-issue would let people block credit-reporting agencies from issuing credit reports without permission.