Identity theft, identity piracy or identity infringement occurs when someone uses another's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term identity theft was coined in 1964. Since that time, the definition of identity theft has been legally defined throughout both the U.K. and the U.S. as the theft of personally identifiable information. Identity theft deliberately uses someone else's identity as a method to gain financial advantages or obtain credit and other benefits. The person whose identity has been stolen may suffer adverse consequences, especially if they are falsely held responsible for the perpetrator's actions. Personally identifiable information generally includes a person's name, date of birth, social security number, driver's license number, bank account or credit card numbers, PINs, electronic signatures, fingerprints, passwords, or any other information that can be used to access a person's financial resources.
A credit score is a number that provides a comparative estimate of an individual's creditworthiness based on an analysis of their credit report. It is an inexpensive and main alternative to other forms of consumer loan underwriting.
Experian is a multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more than 25 million U.S. businesses.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., is federal legislation enacted to promote the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of consumer information contained in the files of consumer reporting agencies. It was intended to shield consumers from the willful and/or negligent inclusion of erroneous data in their credit reports. To that end, the FCRA regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including consumer credit information. Together with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the FCRA forms the foundation of consumer rights law in the United States. It was originally passed in 1970, and is enforced by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and private litigants.
TransUnion is an American consumer credit reporting agency. TransUnion collects and aggregates information on over one billion individual consumers in over thirty countries including "200 million files profiling nearly every credit-active consumer in the United States". Its customers include over 65,000 businesses. Based in Chicago, Illinois, TransUnion's 2014 revenue was US$1.3 billion. It is the smallest of the three largest credit agencies, along with Experian and Equifax.
Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies, along with Experian and TransUnion. Equifax collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. In addition to credit and demographic data and services to business, Equifax sells credit monitoring and fraud prevention services directly to consumers.
Based in Burlington, Ontario, TransUnion Canada is one of two credit reporting agencies in Canada. Like their main competitor, Equifax Canada, they now market their credit reports directly to consumers, in addition to their core business of providing the reports to potential creditors.
A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repayment of debts. A credit report is a record of the borrower's credit history from a number of sources, including banks, credit card companies, collection agencies, and governments. A borrower's credit score is the result of a mathematical algorithm applied to a credit report and other sources of information to predict future delinquency.
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 is a U.S. federal law, passed by the United States Congress on November 22, 2003, and signed by President George W. Bush on December 4, 2003, as an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The act allows consumers to request and obtain a free credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies. In cooperation with the Federal Trade Commission, the three major credit reporting agencies set up the web site AnnualCreditReport.com to provide free access to annual credit reports.
A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit reporting body in Australia, a credit information company (CIC) in India, Special Accessing Entity in the Philippines, and also to private lenders. It is not the same as a credit rating agency.
Innovis is the credit reporting division of CBC Companies and is considered the fourth largest consumer credit reporting agency in the United States, behind the “big three” Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Based in Columbus, Ohio, the company offers services like fraud protection, credit information, identity verification, and receivables management.
A credit score is a numerical expression based on a level analysis of a person's credit files, to represent the creditworthiness of an individual. A credit score is primarily based on a credit report, information typically sourced from credit bureaus.
A credit freeze allows an individual to control how a consumer reporting agency is able to sell personal financial identity data. The credit freeze locks the data at the consumer reporting agency until the individual gives permission for the release of the data.
AnnualCreditReport.com is a website jointly operated by the three major U.S. credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The site was created in order to comply with their obligations under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) to provide a mechanism for American consumers to receive up to three free credit reports per year.
Credit report monitoring or company tracking is the monitoring of one's credit history in order to detect any suspicious activity or changes. Companies offer such service on a subscription basis, typically granting regular access to one's credit history, alerts of critical changes to one's credit history, and additional services. Credit monitoring can help detect credit related fraud and identity theft.
An identity score is a system for detecting identity theft. Identity scores are increasingly being adopted as a means to prevent fraud in business and as a tool to verify and correct public records.
Credit Karma is an American multinational personal finance company founded in 2007. It has been a brand of Intuit since December 2020. It is best known as a free credit and financial management platform, but its features also include monitoring of unclaimed property databases and a tool to identify and dispute credit report errors. The company operates in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Noddle was a credit report service offered by the British arm of American company TransUnion. The business was launched in 2011 and was sold to Credit Karma in 2019.
ClearScore is a British financial technology business that provides credit scores, reports and current account spending analysis for individuals at no cost to its subscribers, it earns commission from the financial companies to which it refers individual clients that have used its services.
The Equifax data breach occurred between May and July 2017 at the American credit bureau Equifax. Private records of 147.9 million Americans along with 15.2 million British citizens and about 19,000 Canadian citizens were compromised in the breach, making it one of the largest cybercrimes related to identity theft. In a settlement with the United States Federal Trade Commission, Equifax offered affected users settlement funds and free credit monitoring.
