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Vital Records Agency Information And Data Security Best Practices

By: VitalChek Staff

Vital Record agencies are confronted with information and data security issues as important concerns in today’s technology-enabled world. Companies and government agencies nationwide strive to ensure that only authorized people receive sensitive data. Still, fraud involving documents such as birth certificates occurs. The U.S. passport offices and Immigration and Naturalization Services report that 85 percent and 90 percent respectively of fraud cases involve use of bona fide birth certificates.

This article discusses how ChoicePoint and VitalChek recognized that information and technology can help manage the risks facing government agencies. It is important for Vital Record agencies to strengthen privacy protection and security programs through the implementation of policy and technology.

Vital Record Industry Data Security and Information Privacy Programs:

Several best practices have emerged in the Vital Record Industry. Taking the top-down approach has been the strategy of ChoicePoint. The company limits both internal and external access to sensitive data in addition to truncating or masking personally identifiable information such as individual Social Security numbers or dates of birth in all but a limited set of circumstances. To stay ahead, leading technology is required.

Maintaining updated technology is another way ChoicePoint and VitalChek help provide current security measures for their employees and customers. For example, ChoicePoint utilizes intrusion detection software to prevent hackers from stealing information, application scanning services to detect for system vulnerabilities, e-mail detection software to detect outgoing e-mails containing sensitive personally identifiable information, and a knowledge-based authentication tool used to verify applicants’ identities.

Importance of Privacy Education with Customers and Employees:

Educating customers and employees is an important component of a vital record agency privacy and information security. Privacy policies and procedures should be designed to protect consumer information from misuse. Such policies and procedures should be audited on a regular basis to ensure they are working properly. Below are customer and employee privacy education best practices for vital record agencies.

Customer education and support efforts include:

- Providing a consumer hotline to report suspected fraud

- Obtaining on-line privacy seals for consumer oriented web sites

- Establishing a dedicated privacy Web Site with privacy practices, principles and policies information

Employee education efforts include:

- Requiring all employees to successfully complete mandatory privacy and information security training each year

- Providing social engineering training to certain employees as part of mandatory information security awareness training

- Requiring password reviews and forced password changes to ensure passwords meet minimum security standards

- Establishing an employee and fraud hotline for reporting suspicious incidents

State of Pennsylvania - a Case for Statewide Information Connectivity:

Portal to Aid in Applicant Identity Verification In 1995, a Pennsylvania special legislative session resulted in new laws providing innovative tools to help law enforcement officers combat crime. One of these new laws brought about the creation of Pennsylvania’s Justice Network (JNET), an integrated justice portal that provides a common online environment for authorized users to access public safety and criminal justice information. The Pennsylvania Division of Vital Records utilizes The JNET system to help verify the identity of their vital record applicants.

When a Pennsylvania resident mails in an application for a Pennsylvania vital record, a government issued photo-ID (such as a copy of his or her Pennsylvania driver’s license or non-drivers license photo-ID) is also required for comparison with the license on file at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). Once the Division of Vital Records ensures that certain information matches the copy of the applicant’s license, the applicant’s identity is verified. In addition, walk-in, or counter, applications can be immediately verified with the JNET system.

To ensure security throughout its infrastructure, the JNET program relies upon policy, secure connectivity and role-based entitlements. Access to JNET is limited and requires signed confidentiality agreements and mandatory training seminars. JNET is also a secured system, with managed public key infrastructure (PKI) for both data encryption and digital certification.

The Pennsylvania JNET system is an example of strong cooperation among public safety partners covering more than 85 percent of Pennsylvania’s population, and successfully connects the criminal justice information of all 67 counties, 54 state agencies and 39 federal agencies. The JNET approach to sharing information was even cited as a national model by the National Governor’s Association for Best Practices.

The Pennsylvania JNET system requires mutual support of local, county, and state agencies, yet Pennsylvania has seen great results from this cooperation. Mr. Yeropoli feels extending this approach to other states, including inter-connectivity of motor vehicle files, could be beneficial for identity verification of applicants no longer residing in the state where they were born.

State of Virginia - a Case for Stronger Vital Record Applicant Identity Verification and Authentication:

The Virginia Office of Vital Records realized that knowing their customers and understanding the reason they are requesting sensitive data may help detect any suspicious or potentially fraudulent activity and may even help reduce the potential risk of fraud or identity theft.

During the aftermath of 9/11, Virginia discovered that they were receiving Virginia online birth certificate requests from victims who had died during the terrorists’ attacks. Since decedents could not apply for their own records, the state was instantly alerted to the fact that some individuals were attempting to fraudulently obtain birth certificate copies.

At the time, Virginia had several options for customers to obtain certified birth records: mail-in, walk-in (or counter) and expedited online applications. Both the mail-in and walk-in requests required a driver’s license to prove identity; however, online requests did not require the applicant to send in proof of identity.

Recognizing stronger online customer security was needed, Virginia looked for a simple solution that could streamline customer authentication with the easy online order process. In addition, Virginia wanted to offer telephone ordering as another option for its customers and needed a way to verify the identity of these applicants. The agency found its answer by using ChoicePoint?s ProCheck and ProID knowledge-based authentication solution. Virginia became the first state to use this technology for applicant authentication and verification.

The Virginia Office of Vital Records now has strong applicant identity controls to help protect against credit card fraud and identity theft, using technology to authenticate the applicant’s identity with an online knowledge-based authentication quiz to which only an applicant should know the answers.

According to Janet Rainey, the current Virginia state registrar, since the implementation of ProCheck and ProID, Virginia has had no major incidents of issuing fraudulently obtained vital records. For the 12 month period of March 2006 to March 2007, Virginia has experienced a 90 percent passing rate on the ProCheck identity verification and a 95 percent passing rate on the ProID authentication quiz.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_9407.shtml

Big Opportunity in 2008: Prospering In Hard Times Through Customer Insights

By: David Rich

To paraphrase an old saying, ?When the going gets tough, retailers start slashing operational costs.? Ironically, cost slashing usually exposes a retailer to even greater risks instead of fortifying it against economic uncertainties. All businesses have felt the impact of today?s volatile economy. Retail has been hit especially hard, with sales in 2007 rising by only 2.4% - the smallest year-to-year increase since 2002.

Despite such dour statistics, there are plenty of opportunities to gain share in today?s market. Possible gains, however, require aggressive actions. Moreover, gains will be even more significant if your competitors concurrently pull back on their programs and staffing following the cost-cutting crowd. Hard times offer a tremendous opportunity to increase your market share!

If hard times are indeed the time to play harder, then we need to remind ourselves how we can increase our sales.

Three Easy Ways to Increase Sales

In good times and bad, retailers? sales are, of course, dependent on several basic conditions: store locations, merchandise offered, inventory, proximity of competition, and staffing to name just a few. Beyond these basics there exists three additional, service-oriented ways to improve sales.

1. Sales Increase as Conversion Rates Rise

Today?s typical apparel store retail conversion rate stands at only 18% (82 out of 100 people who walk into a store leave without making a single purchase). While this is a statistic begging for understanding, in harder economic times it makes even more sense to know why shoppers leave your stores without making a purchase. Astute executives also track transaction volume to guard against an apparent but false rise in conversion rate caused by a drop in shopper traffic.

Do you know why shoppers leave your stores without making a purchase? Perhaps you should consider asking them by employing a customer exit interview program in select locations. Exit Interviews are conducted on premise, just as customers leave your stores. Trained interviewers intercept customers leaving without making a purchase. The interviewers ask them a series of questions created to explore exactly why they left your store empty handed. Exit Interviews often dispel intuitive explanations. For example, one, big-box retailer discovered they were not losing sales t due to inventory outages, but because shoppers could not find the merchandise they wanted.

2. Sales Increase as Suggestive Selling Is Employed

Our studies show that improving suggestive selling can increase the bottom-line by millions. To effectively increase suggestive selling you need to provide your sales staff with real reasons that customers should buy your merchandise. This will help them to reinforce the customer?s decision process. Next, you need assurance that sales associates follow through with each and every customer. You can further expand your suggestive sales programs by increasing sales through accessories and related products. Obviously, the more merchandise the customer is exposed to, the greater the likelihood that she will buy something. This means active selling, not passive assistance. Sales associates need to be reminded to actively sell and be motivated to follow through.

Do you know how actively your sales associates conduct follow-through selling? Use a Mystery Shopping program to objectively assess the compliance with your selling guidelines. Mystery Shopping utilizes trained shoppers to visit your stores and observe how guidelines are followed. The shoppers are sent into your stores with a list of observables (cleanliness of the store, display conditions, etc.) and a list of actions (approached by an associate, had additional merchandise suggested, etc.). After shopping your store, the shopper accurately documents her/his experience and the extent to which she/he saw each observable and received each action.

3. Sales Increase as Customers? Experiences Improve

Sales strategies and selling themes developed at the corporate level very often are not executed at the store level. Most chain executives are so busy and immersed in their jobs that they don?t have enough time to objectively audit the customer experience their stores are delivering. Even when headquarters personnel make the effort to conduct store visits, it is rare that they actually experience their store in the same way that customers do.

Do you know how it feels to be your customer? A Customer Satisfaction Survey provides an direct view from your customers? perspective. In contrast to the objectivity and process orientation of mystery shops, satisfaction surveys are about perceptions ? the feelings of your actual customers. Customer Satisfaction Surveys are conducted by interviewing a sample of your customers to determine their perceptions of your stores and sales associates. The result of a properly conducted and implemented customer satisfaction program is a store-level action plan defining the key drivers of your business ? what most needs to be improved to increase your customers? satisfaction and therefore your sales.

Customer satisfaction has become an accepted component of many companies? intelligence programs. We believe that all Customer Satisfaction Programs should be subjected to validation.

So, How Much Does This Information Cost?

Three opportunities to increase sales in this challenging economic environment; three questions begging for information. If cost is what is keeping you from collecting this information, think again. Actually, information programs to answer these questions can cost much less than you would expect! Consider the following two cases:

Case 1. A national retailer recently increased its budget for an audit of its customer experience, moving from quarterly to monthly measurements because it was able to see definitive ROI from the insights it gained. Spending just $35 per store per month on its Mystery Shopping program turned out to be ?peanuts? when information gathered allowed associate performance and sales to be improved.

$420 a year per store to increase sales turned out to be a bargain. Compare this to the costs of new fixtures or carpeting. What payback do they offer in comparison? Consider the cost of the 82% of your customers who walk out without making a purchase. Unfortunately, too many CFOs look at expenditures for gathering information from a direct-cost basis without considering the net cost. They fail to see that dollars spent to improve the customer experience drive their top and bottom lines. Expenditures on improving the customer experience are investment dollars not expense dollars.

Case 2. Another national retailer is stepping up to the plate, even in these uncertain times, by conducting Exit Interviews and implementing a Customer Satisfaction Surveys at all locations. The retailer?s objective is to improve their shoppers? experience by listening to reactions from actual customers and sales associates. The retailer has commissioned an IVR-driven customer satisfaction program and is rolling out exit interviews across its chain. The cost for these systems is less than $800 per location annually.

Combining all programs from these two retailers (Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction, and Exit Interviews) totals about $1,200 a year per store. From this investment a retailer receives a 360 view of its business. This essential view provides the potential for dramatic payback in the toughest economic climate we have faced in the last 15 years.

Commitment Instead of Retreat

Our message is clear, in today?s economy, reductions in programs and information systems will leave retailers vulnerable to competition and leave a void in understanding of the customers? more demanding mindset. An aggressive commitment to continued information programs and complementing data services will help fortify a retailer for the long haul. So?

If you have auditing and feedback programs in place?don?t cut them. However, be sure you are asking the right questions and are partnered with an organization that assists you in communicating the information and in building action plans to foster system-wide improvements.

If you do not have programs in place then?get them?but let experts develop them in partnership with you.

All you have to do is invest in your sales processes and the experience they deliver to your customers. Even in today?s marketplace, customers still have money, but they will become more selective ? they will spend it with those retailers who offer them a better experience, no matter what.

For more information, contact:

David Rich

President and CEO

Phone: 800-444-1717, ext. 212

Email: drich@iccds.com

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_9582.shtml