[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6273 Introduced in House (IH)]








109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6273

  To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide for enhanced 
  protections against identity theft related to the public filing of 
    separation forms of members of the Armed Forces, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 29, 2006

 Mr. Cardoza introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                     Committee on Veterans' Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide for enhanced 
  protections against identity theft related to the public filing of 
    separation forms of members of the Armed Forces, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. PROTECTION AGAINST VETERAN IDENTITY THEFT RELATED TO PUBLIC 
              FILING OF SEPARATION FORMS.

    (a) Identity Theft Protection.--Not later than 180 days after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs 
shall prescribe regulations to establish guidelines for States and 
local governments with respect to protecting against identity theft 
when publicly filing a DD-214.
    (b) Guidelines for Proof of Identity Theft.--Not later than 180 
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
Veterans Affairs shall prescribe regulations to establish guidelines 
for use by a veteran to demonstrate that the personal identification 
information of the veteran was misused by an unauthorized person as a 
direct result of the public filing of the veteran's DD-214.
    (c) Credit Monitoring and Fraud Remediation.--
            (1) Provision of services.--The Secretary of Veterans 
        Affairs shall provide credit monitoring services and fraud 
        remediation to an eligible veteran during the one-year period 
        beginning on the date on which the Secretary approves the 
        application of the veteran.
            (2) Eligibility.--To be eligible to receive services under 
        this subsection, a veteran shall submit to the Secretary an 
        application demonstrating that under the guidelines established 
        under subsection (b), the personal identification information 
        of the veteran was misused by an unauthorized person as a 
        direct result of the public filing of the veteran's DD-214.
            (3) Credit monitoring services.--Credit monitoring services 
        under this subsection shall include each of the following:
                    (A) One copy of the credit report of the veteran 
                every three months.
                    (B) Fraud resolution services for the veteran.
                    (C) Identity theft insurance in a coverage amount 
                that does not exceed $30,000 in aggregate liability for 
                the insured.
    (d) Report to Congress.--Not later than September 30 of each year, 
the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to Congress a report on 
the number of identity thefts connected to the public filing of DD-214s 
that occurred during the year preceding the year during which the 
report is submitted. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall seek to 
cooperate with States and local governments to obtain the information 
submitted in the report.

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) The term ``DD-214'' means the separation form of a 
        member of the Armed Forces designated as Department of Defense 
        Form DD-214 (or any successor form).
            (2) The term ``veteran'' has the meaning given such term 
        under section 101(2) of title 38, United States Code.
            (3) The term ``identity theft'' has the meaning given such 
        term under section 603 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 
        U.S.C. 1681a).
            (4) The term ``personal identification information'', with 
        respect to an individual, means any information about the 
        individual maintained by an agency, including--
                    (A) education, financial transactions, medical 
                history, and criminal or employment history;
                    (B) information that can be used to distinguish or 
                trace the individual's identity, including name, social 
                security number, date and place of birth, mother's 
                maiden name, or biometric records; or
                    (C) any other personal information that is linked 
                or linkable to the individual.
            (5) The term ``fraud remediation'' means services to assist 
        an individual in the process of recovering and rehabilitating 
        the credit of the individual after the individual experiences 
        identity theft.
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