19/06/2017 

Ms SWANSON (Paterson) (19:40): In Australia, someone has their identity stolen every 45 seconds. Online criminals are at work around the clock, trying and succeeding in stealing our identities for nefarious purposes. And a lot of the time, we do not even know about it.

At a mobile office in my electorate of Paterson, Julie came to me last week at her wit's end, wondering what she could do to try to get her life back. Julie now knows her identity was stolen in February. She suspects it was through her driver's licence.

Since that time, Julie has had 18 loan applications made in her name-one for 5000 and $10,000 from big banks such as Westpac, the Commonwealth and Citi Bank. They had apparently given loans to someone using her identity without ever sighting her.

The applications were all done online. You do not even have to go into a bank or provide any physical evidence-just a drivers licence number and you can fudge the rest. Julie has been told by those in the know that a driver's licence is now the most powerful form of ID you have and the most likely to be stolen.

Banks have dedicated fraud teams to deal with this, but still they seem to lend without adequate proof of identity. Julie believes organisations such as Telstra and these big banks are not moving quickly enough. They are not keeping up with the cybercriminals and they are not doing enough to restore the credit rating of victims so they can get on with their lives. Even if a court were to issue Julie with a victim's certificate, this does not compel any organisation to take action. It does not remove a fraudulent transaction from their records nor does it restore your credit rating.

Identity theft is now one of the most common crimes in Australia. It is more common than assault, break-ins, robbery and motor vehicle theft. One in 10 victims requires counselling or medical treatment. Almost a third are over 55. About a quarter are too embarrassed to report it. Another quarter do not know where to go. But, even if they do, it is far from smooth sailing to recover their credit rating. It is a long hard battle. We have to make it harder for thieves to apply for credit in other people's names, and we have to make it easier for victims to get their lives back.