According to the Wall Street Journal, identity theft is the fastest growing white collar crime in the United States today.
An identity can be stolen with a few pieces of personal identifying information. This information can be obtained from a variety of sources, including stolen mail, computer hacking, fraudulent address changes, etc.
In response to the growing threat of identity theft, the United States Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA). The Federal Trade Commission is in charge of enforcing the Red Flags Rule, and required all applicable businesses and agencies to be in compliance by June 1, 2010. This included having a policy and training in place to address the problem of identity theft.
As part of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Identity Theft “Red Flags Rule” Program, university employees who are involved in the creation, modification, or administration of covered accounts are required to review a training presentation and successfully complete the accompanying assessment.
Employees must answer 80 percent or more of the questions in the assessment correctly. The assessment can be repeated until the 80 percent criterion has been accomplished.
Training is coordinated by the Office of Finance and Administration. The training and assessment takes about thirty minutes to complete and is repeated on an annual basis.
