Introduction of the "Alexis Agin Identity Theft Protection Act of 2013"

Floor Speech

Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with my friend and colleague, Sam Johnson, to introduce this bipartisan legislation to protect Americans from identity theft.

I have long been concerned about the problem of identity theft, where all too often the Social Security number, SSN, which is assigned to make sure Americans get their earned Social Security benefits, is the key to committing fraud. For a number of years, Chairman Johnson and I have worked together on a bipartisan basis with other members of our Social Security Subcommittee to find ways to better protect Americans from identity theft.

One of the most troubling forms of identity theft is fraud involving a deceased individual, which victimizes grieving families. Our subcommittee learned about a family that not only lost their young daughter to a terrible cancer--but then was dealt another blow when they found that their child's identity had been stolen and used to collect a fraudulent tax refund.

Our bill aims to stop this fraud in its tracks. It is named in honor of the child whose family asked our Subcommittee to make sure what happened to them did not happen to another family: the ``Alexis Agin Identity Theft Protection Act of 2013.'' No one should have to endure both the loss of a loved one and then the financial stress of dealing with identity theft because a fraudster has appropriated the person's identity.

The Death Master File, DMF, a prime source of SSNs used in identity theft, is a database of death information reported to the Social Security Administration, SSA. However, a lawsuit forced SSA to make this database available to anyone who wants it. SSA needs this information--it is used to make sure earned benefits from the Social Security Trust Fund are only paid to the living. But SSA does not want to make it available to fraudsters, and they should not be required to do so.

Our bill would restrict access to the DMF to legitimate users and release to the general public only death data that is older than three years, at which point it is relatively useless to ID thieves bent on using it for fraud. Over time, our bill also enables the States to take back the responsibility of handling their death data and ends SSA's public release of the DMF for good. The President's budget proposes a similar approach that the Joint Committee on Taxation projects would save $793 million over ten years by reducing the potential for fraudulent tax refunds. The National Taxpayer Advocate and the SSA Inspector General have also called for the public release of the DMF data to end.

I applaud the bipartisan approach we took to resolving this problem for the American people. I hope we can learn from the Agin family's tragic experience and move swiftly to enact this bipartisan, commonsense measure to reduce the harm of identity theft.

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