Monitor Unauthorized Access to Your
Credit Report
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Aside from monitoring the state of your credit, it is equally important to keep an eye on who is accessing your information and ensuring that you have authorized that access to your report if it is not by someone who is permitted to do so without express permission.
There are three chief areas of violation:
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Computer system breaches of databases containing your personal information
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Attempts at fraudulent use of your name and credit often as a result of Phishing, and
Items one and
two are dealt with in the linked articles, so we will deal with item three on this page where the unauthorized access to your credit report is intrusive rather than fraudulent.First, let's establish what the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) has to say about your credit information security:
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Fair Credit Reporting Act - Penalties (Exerpted)620. Unauthorized disclosures by officers or employees [15 U.S.C. ß 1681r] Any officer or employee of a consumer reporting agency who knowingly and willfully provides information concerning an individual from the agency's files to a person not authorized to receive that information shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, imprisoned for not more than 2 years, or both. |
Aside from factors of fraud, there is another reason you do not want a lot of inquiry traffic and that's because at the end of each report will be a list of inquiries which are added each time someone requests a copy of your credit file from the bureau. Anyone who receives a copy of your credit profile will be listed there.
This is important to monitor because
lenders don't like to see a lot of inquiries on a credit report. Numerous inquiries
can result in a credit refusal as easily as bad credit will. Therefore it's
important to verify the type of inquires made, then quickly act to remove any
unauthorized inquiries showing. Not all inquires are viewed negatively. In fact
several types of inquires will not appear on any copy of your file except for
the copy you
receive.
Credit inquiries will remain on your file for up to 2 years. However those within the last 6 months will count most heavily against you. Therefore, you should review the log to make certain that each inquiry was done with "permissible purpose" as explained in Section 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Under Section 604 of the FCRA "permissible purposes" for which consumer credit profiles can be provided to others may be supplied if it's to be used for:
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Credit granting considerations
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Review or collection of an account
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Employment considerations
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Insurance underwriting
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Application for a government license
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With your written permission
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Or in response to a court order
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*FBI investigation
*The new FCRA, enacted in 1996, allows the FBI to access consumer credit reports in connection with an investigation of issues such as counterintelligence.
Therefore, unless inquires fit the categories listed above, they should not be viewing your credit file and you may have those disallowed entries removed. Furthermore, depending upon individual circumstances, you may also be in a position to seek legal remedy for such intrusions.
Related Reading
For those of you wishing to research this topic in more depth, we provide the following public record documents for your use.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act
The Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA") governs the use of consumer
reports.
History of the Fair Credit Reporting Act
A brief chronology of the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA")
as it has evolved over the years.
FTC Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Regulations
Regulation of Disclosure of Financial Information.
PHISHING and Credit Security
Protecting your credit Information Online
For more information on credit related products and services, choose from the
following:
Reports | Monitoring | Scores | 3-in-1 | Debt Help
Last Updated: 01-Sep-2008
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