A group of state lawmakers and other officials gathered yesterday to announce a bill that would limit access to electronic scanners that gather the information from the magnetic strip on the back of credit cards.

"Things such as your name, your address, your phone number, bank account information and much more" can be gathered using the devices, said state Rep. Deborah Heinrich, D-Madison. "Unfortunately, in Connecticut, if a person is caught with one of these access devices and they intend to use it fraudulently . . . they cannot be prosecuted."

The most familiar types of the devices are used at supermarket checkouts and gasoline pumps, where consumers usually swipe the card themselves to initiate a transaction.

These scanners, as small as 2 inches by 2 inches, are finding their way into the hands of criminals, who scan credit-card information and use it to charge items or make cash withdrawals.

Sometimes, criminals duplicate phony credit cards, called "breeder documents," and use them to obtain other documents in the real owner's name such as a driver's license, Social Security card or more credit cards, Madison Police Detective James Daniels said.

The new documents are then used to take out loans, buy expensive items and charge items that are later sold, all in the name and to the detriment of the credit rating of the victim, he said.

He said police are trying to get people to change their habits, for example, by paying restaurant bills at registers instead of allowing a waiter to take a credit card to an inaccessible area.

State Public Safety Commissioner Leonard Boyle, who sits on an anti-identity theft working group recently created by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, said he was not recommending consumers limit use of credit cards.

But Boyle said the group is considering changes in banking regulations that might put more responsibility on banks to create systems less prone to fraud, and to require consumers to produce less information to banks and credit-card companies to make it harder for thieves to steal.

State Rep. Joseph Mioli, D-Westport, who attended the news conference, later said constituents have told him of items they never bought showing up on their credit-card statements.

He said a year ago he had trouble with his computer and had to connect to a call center in India, where the technician took control of his computer over the Internet to fix the problem.

Although nothing untoward happened, he said he wondered whether banking information or other personal information could be compromised in such a situation and sold overseas.

State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee through which the proposal must pass, said he wants to determine how prevalent the misuse of scanners is before moving forward on such a bill.

"I think criminals are becoming much more creative in their methodology for committing identity theft, and we're probably going to be addressing issues like this on an annual basis for the foreseeable future," McDonald said.

In 2003, more than 500,000 identity theft claims were filed with the Federal Trade Commission, leading to $425 million in losses, according to the agency's Web site. In 2004, that rose 30 percent to 645,000 claims and $565 million in losses.

"Scanners are one kind of device that can be very problematic if they are used improperly and they should be very seriously scrutinized and regulated if not banned," state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in an interview in his office.

In February, ChoicePoint Inc., a data warehouser, learned that as many as 5,952 consumers in Connecticut may have had personal information compromised by criminals posing as customers.

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