Press Release
July 11, 2009

Villar seeks immediate passage of Anti-Identity Theft bill
Citing cases of stolen identities in credit cards, internet

Nacionalista Party President Senator Manny Villar is seeking stiff penalties such as long years of imprisonment and multi-million fines to people or groups engaged in identity theft and other on-line rackets under his proposed new measure.

Villar filed Senate Bill 1885 or the Anti-Identity Theft bill, in response to the spate of cases involving identify theft which allowed unscrupulous individuals and groups to access key information about their victims and use it to defraud them.

Among the cases of identity theft is the fraudulent use of credit card of someone else and other internet-based transactions using the identity of the unsuspecting victims.

"Identity theft has become a widespread phenomenon. It has become a common scam," Villar said.

"In fact, the country's pension funds - the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas - have separately expressed alarm over the problem of identity theft in the country," he said, stressing the need to have a law that would "curtail these devious practices."

Two weeks ago, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested Nigerian nationals operating an e-ticket fraud ring. The local aviation industry reportedly lost about $5 million in the past three years due to identity fraud cases.

In his bill, Villar defined "identity theft" as a crime committed when an individual with fraud, malice, ill will, intent to malign or with perversion, uses another's relevant and sensitive personal information to take on that person's identity. The crime of identity theft covers:

a. the misuse of one's personal identification cards including passports, social security, documents relating to tax matters and employment, credit cards and other dossiers that distinguishes a person from another;
b. mail fraud;
c. stolen personalities in the internet, chatrooms, text messaging system and other advanced technology gadgets or in the mechanisms or modes of information highway; and
d. all other forms that tend to establish new identity to defraud the government or further a crime defined in existing laws.

If passed, a violator will be penalized by imprisonment of not less than six (6) years nor more than twenty (20) years, or a fine of not more than five hundred thousand pesos (Php 500,000.00) nor more than five million pesos (Php 5,000,000.00) or both such fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.

The Villar bill likewise mandates the National Statistics Office, the country's repository of personal records, in coordination with the Department of Justice and other relevant offices to establish a nationwide framework of processing to assist victims of identity theft. It also requires these agencies to facilitate the victim's correction of false records and assist law enforcement in obtaining evidence to apprehend the identity thieves.

Villar lamented that "the harrowing stories of people victimized by identity theft have become a normal occurrence in the internet today."

As example, he said: "A local administrator in Bulacan admitted that someone used her e-mail account to send messages to her family, friends and colleagues, saying that she badly needed money because she was stranded in West Africa.. While a pure case of fraud, the person himself whose personality was stolen, tried to open her e-mail account but she was permanently barred from accessing her ID number and password."

There's also a separate case involving an actor/singer/TV host whose e-mail account was accessed by identity thieves and was used to solicit money from friends and relatives supposedly for his airfare money to return home because he was stranded in an Asian city.

Another incident involved a female passport applicant in the Department of Foreign Affairs whose application was immediately denied because apparently another person already owned her identity as shown in the DFA records.

Villar said identity thieves should be stopped on their tracks soon before this becomes another thriving "cyber" cottage industry for criminals.

He said a new legislation directly addressing this would be the first step and the rest will be up to our enforcement authorities.

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