Intellicheck, OneID tout banks’ unique position to cut fraud as digital ID enablers
Banks could play a significantly larger role in protecting consumers, businesses and payment systems from fraud, Intellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis and a new white paper from OneID both suggest.

In the United States, a social security number and driver’s license are often the only credentials used to validate a transaction, Lewis told PMYNTS in a recent interview.

People committing fraud are well aware of the templates for different driver’s licenses and ID documents, Lewis explains.

“Keeping ahead of the bad guys is very difficult when you’re just trying to base it on the front of the license or even where things are positioned on the back,” he says. The barcode, which Intellicheck analyzes with proprietary technology, provides stronger assurance, according to Lewis. biometricupdate.com
 

Theft is Fueling NYC's 'Retail Catastrophe'
Opinion: Shoplifting is turning NYC into a ghost town, we have to fight back

New York City is suffering a retail catastrophe, with 11.2% of storefronts empty — nearly twice the 6% of 2019. Oswald Feliz, a Democratic member of the City Council representing District 15 in The Bronx and chair of the Small Business Committee, says the city and state must take action to stanch the bleeding — particularly on the scourge of retail theft.

When I speak with these small-business owners, they always raise one insidious problem that is threatening their ability to stay afloat: retail theft.

Struggling
 
Many of these small-business owners have faced economic instability before, and know what struggle looks like.  But the real and escalating threat is the small number of individuals who engage in theft simply because they know they can get away with it.

Those that enter bodegas and retail stores and walk away with all of the high-ticket items, which they then resell. After they get away with it, they become emboldened, and then do it again and again.  Before you know it, the business will have a “going out of business” sign at the front.

We cannot accept a system where individuals are allowed to vandalize the hard work of small-business owners — and make a profit by doing so. There must be deterrence and accountability.

‘Unacceptable’

The issue of burglaries also deserves attention.  Recently, I introduced the Small Business Protection Act to provide grants that would help small businesses cover security-related expenses such as cameras, plexiglass and alarms to help deter unlawful conduct.

I’m also grateful that Governor Hochul has made the matter a priority, and has taken new measures at the state level to protect retail businesses and workers.  We must stand up for them now, before those empty storefronts become a blight we cannot stop. nypost.com


It's Official: NY Lawmakers Approve Governor's Retail Theft Funding
New York Earmarks $40 Million to Battle Retail Theft

New York State is about to get tougher on retail crime.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s fiscal 2025 budget, which was approved earlier this week, included $40.2 million that will be used to create dedicated retail theft teams at the state and local level. This will include 100 New York State Police personnel who will be dedicated to fighting organized retail theft.

In addition, the agreement increases the criminal penalty for anyone who assaults and causes physical harm to a retail worker from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Other points that were approved within the budget included allowing prosecutors to combine the value of stolen goods when they file larceny charges, meaning that thieves who steal goods from different stores will now have those goods aggregated as a way of reaching a higher larceny threshold.

It will also now be illegal to sell stolen goods to third parties, whether that’s online or at a physical location.

And there will be a $5 million tax credit to help small businesses invest in added security measures such as cameras. The budget will now create a $3,000 tax credit for any small business that spends more than $4,000 on retail theft prevention measures.

“I promised to fight the scourge of organized retail theft — and in this budget, we got it done,” Hochul said. “Sophisticated organized retail theft operations are putting frontline retail workers at risk and reselling stolen goods on online marketplaces, and we’re taking new steps to end this chaos.”

Larceny offenses for organized retail theft in New York City have jumped 51 percent from 2017 to 2023, the governor’s office said. And robberies, grand larceny and petit larceny increased 86 percent in that same time period.  news.yahoo.com

RELATED: New York in new crackdown on retail theft in NYC


Guards & Dogs Deployed to Curb Crime & Flood of Migrants
New York Home Depot hires guards, dogs to keep parking lot safe from thieves, aggressive migrants
A New York Home Depot has deployed a guard dog — and other stores may be close behind — to protect shoppers from aggressive migrants and thieves flooding their parking lots, The Post has learned.

Two men wearing MSA Security caps and bulletproof vests with a German Shepherd in tow patrolled the Home Depot in New Rochelle on Tuesday. “It’s more about omnipresence,” one guard said, explaining that the company was contracted a few weeks ago. “It’s not like we let them go bite anyone or anything.” The guard said the store hired them for a number of reasons.

“It’s not just because of [migrants], but because of a myriad of other things too, like people breaking into cars, that kind of stuff,” he said.

The guarded New Rochelle lot was quiet and no migrants loitered there when The Post visited this week, however, seven miles away in Throggs Neck, The Bronx, at least 30 male migrants hovered at the doors of Home Depot.

Many aggressively confronted shoppers, trying to sell them phony Apple Airpods or soliciting tips for lifting items from shopping carts into cars — even when uninvited. Customers frequently complain about the crush of migrants, said LaurieAnn Masciocco, who works in the store’s customer service department.

Home Depot corporate spokeswoman Margaret Smith said the company prohibits loitering and solicitation at its stores and regularly works with law enforcement. She would not say if the Bronx stores will add security, including dogs.  nypost.com


Larceny Drops 35%, Burglaries Drop 15% in San Francisco
San Francisco crime rates are plunging, police data shows. This offense dropped more than any other
Reported crimes fell in San Francisco over the first quarter of 2024 across all categories, with some offenses dipping to levels last seen before the pandemic — welcome news in a city that has seen its image battered over concerns about public safety. The trends, documented in city police data, continue the downward trajectory San Francisco saw in 2023, when cities nationwide experienced falling crime.

The figures include double-digit percentage drops in both violent and property crimes, with homicides falling from 11 to 8, rapes by 23%, and burglaries by 15% over the same time last year. Larceny — a type of theft that includes San Francisco’s notoriously high level of car burglaries — fell the most over the previous year, plunging by 35% from 8,389 reported incidents to 5,402, the city’s statistics showed.

As with all crime fluctuations, criminologists caution against assigning too much credit or blame to any single policy or police action. But San Francisco leaders said a coordinated crackdown by local, state and federal law enforcement has chipped away at some of the city’s most persistent public safety problems, including its infamously high rate of property crimes.

Utilizing state and federal law enforcement officials to combat San Francisco’s street-level drug markets has helped to free city police to tackle other crimes, officials said.

While these initiatives center on drug trafficking — which is not a crime tracked as a major category — city officials said the work has complemented and supplemented other crime-fighting efforts. Officers are seizing guns from the streets and arresting people with outstanding warrants. And it’s freed up more resources to tackle fencing operations, car burglaries and retail thefts — crimes producing proceeds that help fuel the drug trade. sfchronicle.com


ORC Briefing in D.C. Discusses the Problem & Solutions
ICSC-Led Congressional Staff Briefing on ORC Draws Large Crowd
On April 3, ICSC led a briefing for Congressional staff on Organized Retail Crime (ORC). The panel included Abby Jagoda, ICSC vice president of Public Policy, Sean Browne, senior manager for Asset Protection at The Home Depot and Chris Michalakis, senior federal legislative representative with United Food & Commercial Workers International Union.

The session was moderated by Caitlin-Jean Juricic, legislative director to Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and attended by more than 70 bipartisan Congressional staff. Panelists discussed the distinctions between general shoplifting and ORC; connections between violent crime and ORC; the implications of ORC on employee and customer safety; the impact of store closures on product availability and revenue for communities across the country; and possible legislative solutions to combat ORC at the local, state and federal levels. icsc.com


Policing the Homeless: Supreme Court Could Shake Things Up
Cities are desperate for rules on policing homelessness. Will SCOTUS answer these 3 big questions?
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in a case that could fundamentally alter how local governments respond to the homelessness crisis, cities across the country have weighed in with the court to detail their struggles and ask the justices to draw from them.

The case at issue involves Grants Pass, Ore., a small, conservative town whose efforts to address street homelessness are in many ways unique to its specific geography and politics. Nevertheless, a host of cities — large and small, coastal and inland, red and blue — say they are grappling with similar challenges.

Collectively, they share a sense of desperation as they seek answers on what, exactly, they are allowed to do as they toe the line between caring for vulnerable, unhoused residents and protecting other residents and merchants who want clean streets and safe access to city streets and parks. sfchronicle.com


Bensalem Township, PA Is Now Publicizing Retail Theft Arrests

White House launches emergency response protocol for mass shootings