“The Federal Trade Commission today told a House subcommittee that millions of consumers are victims of identity theft each year at a cost of billion of dollars and countless hours of consumers’ time to repair the damage. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee’s Social Security Subcommittee, the agency said helping protect consumers from ID theft and deal with its consequences is a critical part of the FTC’s consumer protection mission. In the testimony, the FTC recommended legislation to help mitigate the identity theft problem by making Social Security numbers less useful to identity thieves and making the numbers harder to access.”