• Identity Crime: An Overview
• Prevention
• Victim Assistance
• Investigation
  • Online ID Crime Toolkit for Investigators (NEW)
  • Credit Reporting Companies
  • Initial Investigation
  • Opportunists and Organized Perpetrators
  • Sample Programs and Investigative Resources
  • A Sample of Identity Crimes
  • Identity Crime Tools and Techniques
  • Types of Financial Information to Request
  • Information Victims Can Provide
  • Victim Knowledge
  • Consumer Sentinel Network
  • Downloadable Resources
• Resource Sharing

Consumer Sentinel Network

You can register for free online for the Consumer Sentinel Network. To register your organization with the Consumer Sentinel Network, please click here (https://register.consumersentinel.gov).

In June 2008, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched the new Consumer Sentinel website with increased information sharing capabilities, faster searches, stronger security, and useful documents.

Membership in the Consumer Sentinel Network requires that you and your organization re-register. Here's what you need in order to complete the process:

• Sign on the dotted line. The head of your organization or subgroup must sign a new confidentiality and data security agreement with the FTC. The first part is the same as the confidentiality agreement your organization signed before; the second part asks member organizations to agree to maintain the security of the personal information contained in Consumer Sentinel.

• Check it off. A checklist explains the requirements for registering your organization with the Consumer Sentinel Network. The major steps are:

• Designate an administrator for your organization or division who will keep the organization's passcode and communicate with the Consumer Sentinel team when new staff from your organization ask to register.

• Find out your organization's static IP range—the series of addresses that your organization's computers use when accessing the Internet. Your IT department or Internet Service Provider can give you this information or help you get a static IP address.

• Ask your IT department whether your organization allows users to download an RSA software token. This token is a security feature, loaded in a toolbar that's added to your Internet browser. If you can't download a software token, the Consumer Sentinel team will provide a hardware token.

• Get a new user ID. Once you've gathered the information on the checklist and the FTC receives your signed confidentiality agreement and approves your organization, individual users must re-register and get a new user ID.

Features of the Consumer Sentinel Network. The Consumer Sentinel is an even more effective tool for immediate and secure access to consumer complaints about identity theft, Internet fraud, telemarketing, consumer scams, and the National Do Not Call Registry. Consumer Sentinel Network members can:

• Find complaints faster and more easily
• Store search results in 100 MB of online storage space
• Search within searches
• Gather related complaints using keywords in the search results

If you have questions or need information or help, please call us at toll free at 877–701–9595 or email sentinel@ftc.gov.

Thank you.