Rep. Swalwell, Valadao Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Prevent Social Security Identity Theft and Fraud

October 23, 2015

H.R. 3779 Aims to Protect Children, Veterans, and Seniors

WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, October 21, 2015, Congressman David G. Valadao (CA-21) introduced bipartisan legislation in the United States House of Representatives with the support of lead Democrat cosponsor Congressman Eric Swalwell (CA-15) to protect Americans, especially children, veterans, and senior citizens from becoming victims of identity theft.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. It threatens the financial security of millions of Americans, as well the economic stability of the United States as a whole. In fact, every two seconds, another American becomes a victim of identity fraud. Even worse, children, veterans, and seniors are especially vulnerable to such attacks.

Despite these alarming statistics, there is a high prevalence of unnecessarily printed Social Security numbers on documents issued by the federal government.

H.R. 3779, the Social Security Fraud Prevention Act of 2015, addresses concerns regarding the prevalence of Social Security Numbers on government-issued documents. Specifically, the legislation aims to specify the circumstances under which inclusion of full SSNs are necessary and otherwise partially redact or completely remove the SSN from government-issued documents.

Congressman Valadao explained, "By reducing the number of mailed documents that contain full Social Security numbers, Congress can lessen the occurrence and mitigate the impacts of identity theft." He continued, "The fact that this crime affects children, seniors, and veterans makes it even more imperative that the federal government does everything in its power to prevent identity theft."

Congressman Eric Swalwell, the lead Democrat cosponsor said, "With identity theft growing in the U.S., we must take the crime seriously and take action to protect consumers. I'm proud to join with my United Solutions Caucus colleague, Rep. Valadao to introduce this important legislation to remove Social Security Numbers from government documents where unnecessary or redact these numbers when they are necessary. We can't afford to ignore this growing problem, and this commonsense legislation would take steps to reduce fraud and safeguard Americans."

Congressman David G. Valadao (R-CA-21) and Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA-15) introduced H.R. 3779, on Wednesday, October 21, 2015. Original cosponsors of the legislation include Representatives Ken Calvert (R-CA), Paul Cook (R-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Walter B. Jones (R-NC), David P. Joyce (R-OH), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Stephen Knight (R-CA), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Patrick Murphy (D-FL), Richard M. Nolan (D-MN), Edward R. Royce (R-CA), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Juan Vargas (D-CA), David Young (R-IA).

Text of H.R. 3779 can be found here and a legislative summary of the bill can be found here.