The Federal Trade Commission is hosting a workshop yesterday and today on ways to improve authentication in business transactions.

And that is the heart of ID theft, because the biggest cause of this crime (besides the thieves) is inadequate authentication by lenders, creditors, merchants, etc.

For example: If I steal your Social Security # and birth date, I can easily find a lender or credit card company that will open a new account for me in your name. Even if you have a fraud alert on your credit file, it won't necessarily stop the thief.

Example #2: If I steal your credit card number, I can easily find a merchant who will let me charge on it.

Example #3: If I steal your checking account and banking routing #, I can easily withdraw money from your account. So lenders and merchants could do more.

But there is no easy solution to completely solve the problem. How, for example, do you verify people's IDs online and by phone? Obviously photo IDs and fancier things like fingerprints or retinal scans aren't currently available.

So if your information can be used that easily by a thief, what can you do? Missouri doesn't have a credit freeze law. So your best defense is to protect your personal info the best you can, and catch ID theft early by checking your credit reports.