(U-WIRE) DAVIS, Calif. – Requiring retailers and financial institutions to remove credit card and bank account numbers from credit card transaction receipts at stores and banks, legislation was unanimously passed by the state Senate last week to decrease the rate of identity theft throughout the state.

Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) has authored many of the state’s identity theft prevention laws and wrote Senate Bill 1699 in order to support a current state law that already requires credit card numbers to be removed from customer receipts.

Bowen said there is a risk of identity theft if credit card numbers are printed in their entirety on receipts.

The fewer places your sensitive financial information appears in print, the lower the odds are that you’ll become the state’s next identity theft victim, Bowen said in a May 18 press release. In this day and age, there’s no reason why retailers or banks need to print people’s credit card numbers on the receipts they keep after a sale or a cash withdrawal on a credit or debit card.

Bowen also said she feels that while there has been progress in recent years to combat identity theft, further action such as SB 1699 should be taken to protect more citizens.

The identity theft prevention laws we’ve put on the books are clearly starting to have an effect, but there’s still a lot more work to be done, Bowen said. It took some time to convince banks and other businesses to stop using people’s Social Security numbers as their account numbers and printing them on statements and documents they mail to their customers. Now it’s time to apply those same rules to account numbers that are printed on statements and receipts, because an identity thief who gets his hands on that information can still take you to the cleaners.

Beth Givens, founder and director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer organization with a mission of consumer information and consumer advocacy, said the legislation could be beneficial to students and cited dishonest employees in organizations who fail to hide some account numbers.

It’s a very simple bill, said Givens. It protects students from identity theft and I think students use credit cards a lot. It means that unfortunately if there was a dishonest employee, it would mean that the employee would not be able to see the full credit card number.

Jennie Bretschneider, an aide to Bowen, said the bill could increase overall protection for credit card users, including greater security against identity theft, and noted that theft costs the country nearly $50 billion each year.

This bill goes to credit card fraud in particular, Bretschneider said. There is also a risk there. When someone takes over your credit card account, that can lead to identity theft some of the time. It prevents credit card fraud as well as identity theft.

Bretschneider said statistics show approximately 330 hours and $1,200 out of pocket will go into clearing one’s name after identity theft occurs.

According to recent surveys by the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is slowing nationwide, and in California it is decreasing at an even greater rate. Identity theft only grew by 3 percent in the state in 2005, compared to 11 percent in 2004. California also ranks third behind Arizona and Nevada in per-capita identity theft and holds four of the top 10 identity theft-related complaints by metropolitan area.

The legislation will now move to the Assembly and is expected to be heard in June.Copyright ©2006 The California Aggie via CSTV U-Wire