There is no shortage of so-called identity theft protection products on the market, the most visible being the ubiquitous CEO of LifeLock taking out full-page advertisements touting his social security number.
A newer entrant to the market, Debix, offers features that have bank fraud departments and law enforcement agencies paying attention. Like other ventures, Debix works primarily by placing fraud alerts on consumers credit bureau accounts so that any attempt to open credit in that person’s name results in a call to the consumer (Experian is currently suing LifeLock over this practice, but thus far Debix hasn’t been involved.) In Debix’s model, the Texas-based company acts as the middleman, contacting customers via cell phone when a credit request is made, and letting customers approve or reject the request in real time. If a request turns out to be fraudulent, Debix’s staff offers consumers moral and tactical support in dealing with the fraud attempt.
“This is like OnStar for your identity,” says Bo Holland, CEO of Debix.
Perhaps most interesting about Debix is its practice of immediately notifying the appropriate law enforcement jurisdiction when a credit request is identified as fraud, and further packaging case information to authorities if they intend to pursue a case. The real-time nature of Debix’s credit approval scheme also offers visibility into actual fraud levels, both following a breach and in the general population. In the past month, Debix has contacted consumers to authorize 68,000 credit requests, with 862 of these reported by consumers to be fraud attempts.
A number of state governments that have suffered breaches have purchased Debix services for their victims. Holland further envisions banks using Debix as a multi-channel out of band authentication scheme for high-risk transactions.
