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Let county use funds to foil identity thieves

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The Arizona House of Representatives sent this troubling message last week: Citizens of Arizona who don't live in Maricopa County are not as important as those who do.

At least that's the message we received when the House, on a voice vote Wednesday, gave preliminary approval to Senate Bill 1169, which would give Maricopa County residents additional protection from identity theft but denies the same safeguard to residents of the state's other 14 counties.

SB 1169, which has already passed the Senate, requires county recorders to ensure that people accessing public records on the Internet cannot get Social Security numbers from those documents. The bill would prevent people anywhere in the world from fishing through thousands of public records in search of Social Security numbers and other personal data needed to commit credit fraud.

While the redacting of Social Security numbers from Web-accessible documents would occur automatically for Maricopa County residents, under terms of the bill Arizonans who live elsewhere would have to ask their county recorders to black out the information.

Essentially, the issue is one of costs and unfunded mandates. The Legislature wants to protect Arizona consumers so long as it doesn't cost anything.

Maricopa County is already paying for the redaction from a $4-per-document surcharge that the state allows recorders to collect. However, other county recorders, such as Pima County's F. Ann Rodriguez, use those surcharge funds for other purposes, as directed by their superiors.

When recorders from smaller counties started to complain that they would be unable to pay for removing the Social Security numbers from online documents, the House took the easy way out. Instead of allocating funds for the safeguard, it simply limited the mandate to Maricopa County, which, of course, is already performing the task.

The House's action allows some legislators to claim they are protecting consumers when they really aren't.

Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Tucson, tried to amend SB 1169 so that it would provide $4.7 million in funding so that public records statewide could be protected, but the amendment failed.

"We have to protect every Arizonan, not just the Arizonans who live in Maricopa County," Prezelski told Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services.

"The other counties cannot cover the cost of this bill. I don't think we should let our parsimony dictate who gets protected and who doesn't from identity theft."

Identity theft through public documents visible on the Internet isn't a problem across the entire state, but enough counties put public records online that it isn't just a Maricopa County issue. The state's investment of nearly $5 million to protect consumers from identity theft could potentially mean millions more in savings from credit fraud.

In addition to Maricopa County, Rodriguez said, images of public records are also accessible in Coconino, Graham, Greenlee, Navajo, Pinal and Yavapai counties.

In Pima County, the general public doesn't have access to public records online. Such access is available only by subscription, which Rodriguez said starts at $100 for six months and 200 transactions.

The costs and headaches related to identity theft can be enormous. The Federal Trade Commission reported in February that more than 670,000 cases of fraud and identity theft cost U.S. consumers $1.2 billion in 2006.

Arizona, in particular, is hard-hit, with five areas — Flagstaff, Sierra Vista-Douglas, Phoenix-Mesa, Tucson and Yuma — ranking among the 21 worst cities for identity-theft complaints.

Rodriguez said she would need $1.9 million to redact Social Security numbers from older computerized public records.

While most of the state's residents live in Maricopa County, it's provincial of the Legislature to protect one group of constituents and not another.

"Just because Maricopa County is three times bigger than anyone else doesn't mean that citizens in other counties aren't just as important," Rodriguez said. "Laws are supposed to be created fairly and equally for all citizens."

We agree. If it doesn't protect all Arizonans, SB 1169 does nothing but maintain the status quo. We urge lawmakers to protect all citizens of state, whether they live in Maricopa County or not.

See related guest opinion / A7