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The American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
and the Better Business Bureau system (BBB) today
announced a partnership with a cross-sector team
of high profile companies to create a single
resource of standards and guidelines that
businesses and other organizations can use to
prevent and respond to identity theft and fraud.
The nine founding partners that have joined ANSI
and BBB in this effort are AT&T, Citi,
ChoicePoint, Dell Inc., Intersections Inc.,
Microsoft, Staples, Inc., TransUnion and Visa
U.S.A.
The initiative, called the
Identity Theft Prevention and Identity Management
Standards Panel (IDSP), leverages ANSI’s
unique expertise as coordinator of the U.S.
standards and conformity assessment system with
BBB’s extensive experience in advancing trust in
the marketplace. The panel’s membership will
include participation from the full range of
affected stakeholders.
“More than 18 million Americans have been the
victims of identity-related fraud over the past
two years, crossing all aspects of their personal
and financial life, said S. Joe Bhatia, ANSI
president and CEO. “It’s time that a coordinated
assessment was made of the standards and other
solutions that the marketplace has developed, or
needs to develop, to address this problem and to
make the results widely available.”
The IDSP will have two main charges: First, it
will endeavor to identify and catalogue in one
place any existing, broadly-applicable identity
theft and fraud prevention standards and
guidelines. Second, it will identify areas where
updated or new standards are needed. The panel’s
recommendations for revised or additional
standards shall serve as a call to action for
further work by the standards development
community.
“Securing and protecting sensitive personal
information is crucial for businesses wanting to
earn customer trust,” explained Steven Cole, BBB
system president and CEO. “By identifying,
reviewing and making available the relevant
standards and guidelines, we will be giving
businesses a toolkit that will help them deliver
on their responsibility to protect the data of
their customers, partners and employees.”
Issues to be explored by the IDSP include managing
access, storage and disposal of customer and
employee data, personnel qualifications and
training for the handling of sensitive data,
criteria for selecting data contractors, and
recapturing and restoring the integrity of stolen
identities.
An aggressive timetable of 12-18 months has been
set for the Panel to produce a comprehensive,
cross-sector set of requirements and best
practices that can help any organization protect
the confidential personal data of its employees
and customers.
In addition to industry, participation is being
sought from standards development organizations,
trade and professional associations, government
agencies, consumer groups, organized labor,
academia and other interested groups. Those
organizations interested in participating in the
IDSP initiative are encouraged to contact Jim
McCabe, ANSI director of consumer relations and
public policy (212-642-8921; jmccabe@ansi.org).
For more information, visit the panel’s website at
www.ansi.org/idsp.
About ANSI
ANSI is a private non-profit organization whose
mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness
and the American quality of life by promoting,
facilitating, and safeguarding the integrity of
the voluntary standardization and conformity
assessment system. Its membership is comprised of
businesses, professional societies and trade
associations, standards developers, government
agencies, and consumer and labor organizations.
For more information, visit www.ansi.org.
About BBB
Based in Arlington, VA, the BBB system is
dedicated to fostering trust between businesses
and consumers in both the traditional and online
marketplace. The first BBB was founded in 1912 –
today, the BBB system is comprised of 130 local
Better Business Bureaus (BBBs) across the US and
Canada, and serves millions of consumers, nearly
400,000 small and medium business members, and
several hundred national and multi-national
corporations based in North America. The BBB
system has grown to become the most trusted name
and recognized advocate for promoting ethical
business and advertising practices, providing more
than 90 million instances of service to consumers
and businesses in 2005. For more information on
the BBB system, visit www.bbb.org.
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