Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 1871, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to allow consumers who are victims of identity theft to place a security freeze on their credit reports which will prohibit a consumer reporting agency from releasing any information to unauthorized parties without the consumer's express authorization and which will provide consumers with more control over who has access to their credit report.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu, the Honolulu Police Department, the Kuli`ou`ou/Kalani Iki Neighborhood Board #2, AARP Hawaii, Retail Merchants of Hawaii, the Consumer Data Industry Association, and the Hawaii Financial Services Association.

Your Committee finds that a security freeze is considered one of the few ways to virtually guarantee that a thief cannot open an account in an innocent party's name. With a freeze, if an identity thief applies for credit in a consumer's name, the creditor will be unable to check the consumer's history and the application will be rejected, thus keeping the innocent consumer's credit safe. This measure does include mechanisms to lift a freeze in cases where a consumer is opening a legitimate line of credit.

Your Committee has amended this measure to:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1871, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1871, H.D. 1, S.D. 2.