Giving The Fingerprint: New Policy Raises Privacy Concerns - cbs2chicago.com: "The new law, which is set to go into effect June 1, 2009, will force anyone selling property in Cook County to provide a thumbprint from their right hand."
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I think the title companies wanted this law in order to prevent fraud. Is this a bad thing? I don't see it as a big intrusion on privacy.
4 comments:
Exactly how is this program going to prevent fraud?
Is the title company going to try to verify that the fingerprint belongs to that of the owner? If so, then they need to have a fingerprint to compare it to don't they? Where does this "source" fingerprint come from?
If not, then where do they plan to store this information and for how long? Who will have access to the thumbprints of the property owners? When will the fingerprint get compared and to what? The fraud they claim they are trying to prevent would appear to be a fraudulent sale by someone who doesn't own the property - but they don't have the owner's source fingerprint to compare the fraudster's fingerprint to prior to the sale. What this appears to be is an attempt to collect the fingerprint of people for purposes of identification at trial. Exactly whose fingerprint do you use when there is a power of attorney, guardianship, or executor - and what and when is it compared?
This proposal seems ill-suited at preventing fraud. The system clearly does not help identify fraud in a preventative manner. At best it might help identify a perpetrator long after the fact.
I would say the idea is to prevent (or at least discourage) people from pretending to be the owner of a house when they aren't. If Mr. Crook fraudulently sells a house pretending to be Mr. Victim, the real owner, it can be proved that Mr. Crook did it. There is a permanent record of that fact. The sale would be invalid and Mr. Victim would still own it. Without proof, you have a dispute between Mr. Victim and Mr. Purchaser over who owns the house, because there is no way to prove who sold it.
I'm torn. On one hand, I like the idea of cracking down on this fraud. On the other hand, it is ooky to think of my fingerprint going on record somewhere when I am not a criminal.
Mr. Crook can provide proper-looking documentation purporting to give himself power of attorney for a real estate transaction. Now what do you do? All Mr. Owner can do is say he didn't give power of attorney and you are back in the same boat. On the other hand if one can prove that the power of attorney is a forgery without thumbprints, then one should be able to do the same with the closing documents. Ergo a thumbprint is not needed.
This isn't about preventing fraud because there is nothing to compare the fingerprint to at the time of the transaction. Once the money is transferred, the money will be gone. At best you might be able to use this after-the-fact to help find who committed the fraud - if they have a record. This won't, however, stop the fraud from being prevented. Why not take pictures or a video at the time of the transaction so you have some idea who you are looking for.
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