WASHINGTON – At the inaugural meeting of President George W. Bush's Identity Theft Task Force last week, NCUA was represented by Board Member Gigi Hyland.

“I was honored to participate in the Task Force meeting on behalf of NCUA,” Hyland said. “Credit union members and consumers need as much information as possible to protect themselves against this pervasive threat. The collaborative efforts of this Task Force will hopefully succeed to deter identity theft and enhance the protection of consumers' personal data.” The president signed an executive order to strengthen federal efforts to protect against identity theft May 10, which established the task force. All of the federal financial regulators are included as well as other executive branch departments. The goals of the task force include aggressive law enforcement actions to prevent, investigate and prosecute identity theft crimes; improved public outreach by the federal government; and increased safeguards to implement at the federal departments, agencies, and instrumentalities. Ironically, this meeting occurred the same day the Department of Veterans Affairs announced 26.5 million names, Social Security numbers, and birthdates had been stolen from an employee's home when the laptop he brought home from work, an action in violation of department policy, was taken during a burglary. No health or financial information was taken, according to VA. The employee was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

The task force has already been informed of the situation and the VA is working with Congress, the media, veterans' service organizations and other government agencies to make sure everyone is aware of the situation and how to respond. The VA will also be mailing individual notification letters. A call center, at 1-800-FED-INFO, is available to handle up to 20,000 calls per hour and the firstgov.gov Web site has been set up to handle the increased traffic.