Are you who you think you are?
This may sound nuts, but today I found out that I'm not, according to a credit-checking company called Equifax. I'd never heard of them personally, but when I tried to set up a direct debit for my new cellphone, I was rejected. Why? I asked naively. I have no unpaid debts, my bank account is in credit, I only want a ten-pound top-up every month. It turns out that my date of birth, the same one I've always had and which my mother (who was there at the time) assures me is correct, doesn't match that in the files of Equifax.
I wouldn't mind that so much in itself; the 11th September has become an inauspicious date in the last 4 years, I'd happily change it for the 9th of February, say, or sometime in July when the weather's nice and we could have a barbecue. However, the incovenience of this is that all my other forms of identification, birth certificates, bank accounts, passports etc., include the DOB 9/11/1966. They would; it was the day on which I was born, after all.
I think I can reasonably discount an enormous organised conspiracy by my mother, father, grandparents etc., to have a good laugh at my expense 39 years later; I admit to paranoid tendencies but even I can see that's loony. No, I'm afraid Equifax have got their facts (or fax) wrong. So tonight I visited their website with the intention of correcting this, even prepared to scan in a copy of my birth certificate if necessary. Stymied. The only way to contact them was to sign up, and the only way to sign up was to pay £9.95 for a full credit report, and when I typed in my details (frustrated and foaming at the ears) I was continually rejected for an error in the DOB field. I have no way of knowing what incorrect DOB they're holding for me, and even if I did, typing it in would only confirm it; I'm trapped in an electronic Catch 22. Okay, for the moment I don't care, I'll pay for a top-up card for my cellphone like everyone else, but what if I want a mortgage, or a loan for a yacht (unlikely, but I can dream, can't I?).
So who are Equifax, how come they have an file on me anyway? Here in the UK we have a thing called the Data Protection Act, which (allegedly) allows any citizen to access any data stored about them anywhere, by anyone. This is all very well and good, but I didn't know of the existence of Equifax until today, let alone that they knew about me, and they're almost certainly one of many. Every time we use our plastic fantastic, our tastes, shopping-habits, musical preferences, preferred contraceptives and petfoods are stored on a database somewhere. How on earth are any of us supposed to go about finding out who is storing what and why, and more importantly, if they're getting it right?
And some of it is partly our own fault. For instance, I have a store loyalty card which belonged to my deceased grandmother. It's mostly through laziness that I haven't changed this to my own name, but also partly because I don't use that store much and also because last time I tried it (in another store) I somehow "lost" all the accumulated points. So on some databases, my Gran is still alive and well and spending her pension on stuffed artichokes and Cabernet Sauvignon. I routinely get junk-mail for her, since I now live at her address; I've formulated a letter along the lines of "Dear X, Thank you for your offer of life insurance/cruise holidays/adoption of a Spanish donkey; I regret to inform you that Mrs. X (Gran) has been deceased for over 4 years, and our local authority have strict criteria about the exhumation of human bodies. Tempting though your offer is, I feel that it does not meet these criteria etc., etc." I like to print these form letters off and stick them in any pre-paid envelope that arrives; hopefully someone in an office somewhere will be marginally amused by this. It's nice to think I can contribute to the sum of human happiness, even in so miniscule and macabre a fashion.
Identity theft has been big news recently, as has the introduction of biometric ID. These gizmos, fingerprinted ID cards and iris-recognition passports and security cards are (so we're told here in the UK at least) going to make this kind of fraud almost impossible. Oh yeah? If you look at the history of crime, you'll find that criminals are almost always one step ahead; that's why hacking and ID theft have been so successful, after all. I read an article in the "New Scientist" this week, and according to the NS people are already being divided into sheep, lambs, wolves and goats. Sheep (so I read) will be easy to classify; lambs will be most vulnerable to fraud; wolves will be good mimics; goats will be people like manual workers (erased fingerprints) or people with facial deformities (not susceptible to iris scans) who just won't get into the system in the first place. If you're interested, the last two editions of New Scientist - www.newscientist.com - deal with biometric identity systems and their drawbacks; in the light of my experience with Equifax, I've found these articles both enlightening and more than a little frightening.
So if anyone has any ideas how I can convince Equifax that they've got it wrong, I'd be interested to know. I have a feeling it will be the first of many dilemmas for me with electronic identity; I've never knowingly passed myself off as anyone else, and as far as I know, people aren't queueing up to be me. But how can you know, until you check? I didn't - I've got a passport, a home, all the usual trappings of civilisation except a credit card (I'm an old hippy), but apparently I'm not who I think I am. But hey, I wouldn't mind losing a decade, maybe even 10lbs or so, come to think of it.........
I wouldn't mind that so much in itself; the 11th September has become an inauspicious date in the last 4 years, I'd happily change it for the 9th of February, say, or sometime in July when the weather's nice and we could have a barbecue. However, the incovenience of this is that all my other forms of identification, birth certificates, bank accounts, passports etc., include the DOB 9/11/1966. They would; it was the day on which I was born, after all.
I think I can reasonably discount an enormous organised conspiracy by my mother, father, grandparents etc., to have a good laugh at my expense 39 years later; I admit to paranoid tendencies but even I can see that's loony. No, I'm afraid Equifax have got their facts (or fax) wrong. So tonight I visited their website with the intention of correcting this, even prepared to scan in a copy of my birth certificate if necessary. Stymied. The only way to contact them was to sign up, and the only way to sign up was to pay £9.95 for a full credit report, and when I typed in my details (frustrated and foaming at the ears) I was continually rejected for an error in the DOB field. I have no way of knowing what incorrect DOB they're holding for me, and even if I did, typing it in would only confirm it; I'm trapped in an electronic Catch 22. Okay, for the moment I don't care, I'll pay for a top-up card for my cellphone like everyone else, but what if I want a mortgage, or a loan for a yacht (unlikely, but I can dream, can't I?).
So who are Equifax, how come they have an file on me anyway? Here in the UK we have a thing called the Data Protection Act, which (allegedly) allows any citizen to access any data stored about them anywhere, by anyone. This is all very well and good, but I didn't know of the existence of Equifax until today, let alone that they knew about me, and they're almost certainly one of many. Every time we use our plastic fantastic, our tastes, shopping-habits, musical preferences, preferred contraceptives and petfoods are stored on a database somewhere. How on earth are any of us supposed to go about finding out who is storing what and why, and more importantly, if they're getting it right?
And some of it is partly our own fault. For instance, I have a store loyalty card which belonged to my deceased grandmother. It's mostly through laziness that I haven't changed this to my own name, but also partly because I don't use that store much and also because last time I tried it (in another store) I somehow "lost" all the accumulated points. So on some databases, my Gran is still alive and well and spending her pension on stuffed artichokes and Cabernet Sauvignon. I routinely get junk-mail for her, since I now live at her address; I've formulated a letter along the lines of "Dear X, Thank you for your offer of life insurance/cruise holidays/adoption of a Spanish donkey; I regret to inform you that Mrs. X (Gran) has been deceased for over 4 years, and our local authority have strict criteria about the exhumation of human bodies. Tempting though your offer is, I feel that it does not meet these criteria etc., etc." I like to print these form letters off and stick them in any pre-paid envelope that arrives; hopefully someone in an office somewhere will be marginally amused by this. It's nice to think I can contribute to the sum of human happiness, even in so miniscule and macabre a fashion.
Identity theft has been big news recently, as has the introduction of biometric ID. These gizmos, fingerprinted ID cards and iris-recognition passports and security cards are (so we're told here in the UK at least) going to make this kind of fraud almost impossible. Oh yeah? If you look at the history of crime, you'll find that criminals are almost always one step ahead; that's why hacking and ID theft have been so successful, after all. I read an article in the "New Scientist" this week, and according to the NS people are already being divided into sheep, lambs, wolves and goats. Sheep (so I read) will be easy to classify; lambs will be most vulnerable to fraud; wolves will be good mimics; goats will be people like manual workers (erased fingerprints) or people with facial deformities (not susceptible to iris scans) who just won't get into the system in the first place. If you're interested, the last two editions of New Scientist - www.newscientist.com - deal with biometric identity systems and their drawbacks; in the light of my experience with Equifax, I've found these articles both enlightening and more than a little frightening.
So if anyone has any ideas how I can convince Equifax that they've got it wrong, I'd be interested to know. I have a feeling it will be the first of many dilemmas for me with electronic identity; I've never knowingly passed myself off as anyone else, and as far as I know, people aren't queueing up to be me. But how can you know, until you check? I didn't - I've got a passport, a home, all the usual trappings of civilisation except a credit card (I'm an old hippy), but apparently I'm not who I think I am. But hey, I wouldn't mind losing a decade, maybe even 10lbs or so, come to think of it.........
posted by holojojo at 1:07 PM
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