Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
Section 1. Title 44, chapter 11, article 6, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 44-1698, to read:
START_STATUTE44-1698. Consumer reports; security freeze;
definitions
A. A
consumer may request in writing that a consumer reporting agency place a security
freeze on the consumer's consumer report. The request shall be sent by
certified mail. If a security freeze is in place, a consumer reporting agency
may not release information from a consumer's consumer report to a third party
without the consumer's prior express authorization. This subsection does not
prevent a consumer reporting agency from advising a third party that a security
freeze is in effect with respect to the consumer's consumer report.
B. A
consumer reporting agency shall place a security freeze on a consumer's
consumer report no later than ten business days after receiving a written
request from the consumer.
c. The
consumer reporting agency shall send a written confirmation of the security
freeze to the consumer within ten business days and shall provide the consumer
with a unique personal identification number or password, other than the
consumer's social security number, that the consumer may use to provide
authorization for the release of the consumer's consumer report for a specific
period of time.
D. To allow
a consumer report to be accessed for a specific period of time, the consumer
shall contact the consumer reporting agency, shall request that the freeze be
temporarily lifted and shall provide the following information:
1. Proper
identification.
2. The
unique personal identification number or password that the consumer reporting
agency provided to the consumer.
3. The
proper information regarding the time period for which the report shall be
available to users of the consumer report.
E. A
consumer reporting agency that receives a request from a consumer to
temporarily lift a freeze on a consumer report pursuant to subsection D shall
comply with the request within three business days after receiving the request.
F. A consumer
reporting agency may develop procedures involving the use of telephone, fax,
internet or other electronic media to receive and process in an expedited
manner a request from a consumer to temporarily lift a freeze on a consumer
report pursuant to subsection D.
G. A
consumer reporting agency shall remove or temporarily lift a freeze placed on a
consumer's consumer report only in the following cases:
1. On the
consumer's request pursuant to subsection D or I.
2. If the
consumer's consumer report was frozen due to a material misrepresentation of
fact by the consumer. If a consumer reporting agency intends to remove a
freeze on a consumer's consumer report pursuant to this paragraph, the consumer
reporting agency shall notify the consumer in writing before removing the
freeze on the consumer's consumer report.
H. If a
third party requests access to a consumer report on which a security freeze is
in effect, the request is in connection with an application for credit or any
other use and the consumer does not allow the consumer's consumer report to be
accessed for that specific period of time, the third party may treat the
application as incomplete.
I. A
security freeze remains in effect until the consumer requests that the security
freeze be removed. A consumer reporting agency shall remove a security freeze
within three business days after receiving the consumer's request for removal.
On requesting removal, the consumer shall provide the following information:
1. Proper
identification.
2. The
unique personal identification number or password that the consumer reporting
agency provided to the consumer.
J. A
consumer reporting agency shall require proper identification of any person who
makes a request to place or remove a security freeze.
K. A consumer
reporting agency may charge a fee of not more than five dollars for each
freeze, removal of the freeze or temporary lift of the freeze for a period of
time. The five dollar fee may be increased annually by an amount not to exceed
the retail consumer price index published by the United States bureau of labor
statistics in the preceding year.
L. If a
security freeze is in place, a consumer reporting agency shall not change a
consumer's name, date of birth, social security number or address in the consumer's
consumer report without sending a written confirmation of the change to the
consumer within thirty days after the change is posted to the consumer's file.
Written confirmation is not required for technical modifications of a
consumer's official information, including name and street abbreviations,
complete spellings or transposition of numbers or letters. For the purposes of
address changes, the consumer reporting agency shall send the written
confirmation to both the new address and the former address.
M. This
section does not apply to any of the following:
1. A
consumer reporting agency that acts only as a reseller of credit information by
assembling and merging information contained in the database of another
consumer reporting agency or multiple consumer reporting agencies and that does
not maintain a permanent database of credit information from which new consumer
reports are produced.
2. A person
or the person's subsidiary, affiliate, agent or assignee with whom the consumer
has or, prior to assignment, had an account, contract or debtor creditor
relationship for the purposes of reviewing the account or collecting the
financial obligation owing for the account, contract or debt.
3. A
subsidiary, affiliate, agent, assignee or prospective assignee of a person to
whom access has been granted under the temporary lift of a freeze pursuant to
this section for purposes of facilitating the extension of credit or other
permissible use.
4. A person
acting pursuant to a court order, warrant or subpoena.
5. A state
or local agency that administers a program for establishing and enforcing child
support obligations.
6. The
department of health services or its agents or assigns acting to investigate
fraud.
7. The
department of revenue or its agents or assigns acting to investigate or collect
delinquent taxes or unpaid court orders or to fulfill any of its other
statutory responsibilities.
8. A person
for the purposes of prescreening as defined by the federal fair credit
reporting act of 1970 (P.L. 91-508; 84 Stat. 1127; 15 United States Code
sections 1681 through 1681x).
9. A person
administering a credit file monitoring subscription service to which the
consumer has subscribed.
10. A person
providing a consumer with a copy of the consumer's credit report on the
consumer's request.
11. A person
setting or adjusting a rate or claim or underwriting for insurance purposes.
N. The
following entities are not required to place a security freeze in a consumer
report:
1. A check
services or fraud prevention services company that issues reports on incidents
of fraud or authorizations for the purpose of approving or processing
negotiable instruments, electronic funds transfers or similar methods of
payments.
2. A deposit
account information service company that issues reports regarding account
closures due to fraud, substantial overdrafts, automatic teller machine abuse
or similar negative information regarding a consumer to inquiring banks or
other financial institutions for use only in reviewing a consumer request for a
deposit account at the inquiring bank or financial institution.
O. For the
purposes of this section:
1. "Proper
identification" means information that is generally deemed to be
sufficient to identify a person.
2. "Security
freeze" means a notice that is placed in a consumer's consumer report, at
the request of the consumer, and that prohibits the consumer reporting agency
from releasing the consumer's consumer report or any information derived from
it without the express authorization of the consumer. END_STATUTE
