T.C.A. §§ 47-18-2108 provides that employees/applicants have a right to place a "security freeze" on your credit report, which will prohibit a consumer reporting agency from releasing information in your credit report without their express authorization. A security freeze must be requested in writing by certified mail or by electronic means as provided by a consumer reporting agency. The security freeze is designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being approved in the employee or applicants' name without their consent. If the employees/applicants are actively seeking a new credit, loan, utility, or telephone account, you should understand that the procedures involved in lifting a security freeze may slow your applications for credit. Employees/Applicants should plan ahead and lift a freeze in advance of actually applying for new credit. When a security freeze is placed on a credit report, the employee/applicant will be provided a personal identification number or password to use if they choose to remove the freeze on your credit report or authorize the release of your credit report for a period of time after the freeze is in place. To provide that authorization the employee/applicant must contact the consumer reporting agency and provide all of the following:

(1) The personal identification number or password;

(2) Proper identification to verify their identity; and

(3) The proper information regarding the period of time for which the report shall be available.

A consumer reporting agency must authorize the release of your credit report no later than fifteen (15) minutes after receiving the above information.

A security freeze does not apply to a person or entity, or its affiliates, or collection agencies acting on behalf of the person or entity, with which the employees/applicants have an existing account, that requests information in the credit report for the purposes of fraud control, or, reviewing or collecting the account. Reviewing the account includes activities related to account maintenance.

The employee/applicant should consider filing a complaint regarding their identity theft situation with the Federal Trade Commission and the Tennessee department of commerce and insurance, division of consumer affairs, either in writing or via their Web sites.

The employee/applicant has a right to bring civil action against anyone, including a consumer reporting agency, who improperly obtains access to a file, misuses file data, or fails to correct inaccurate file data.

A consumer report agency shall not charge a Tennessee consumer to place, temporarily lift, or permanently remove a security freeze (T.C.A. § 47-18-2108(l).

Additionally, T.C.A. § 47-18-2111 gives parents or legal guardians the ability to enact a security freeze on persons under 16 yeas of age or an incapacitated person under the care of a guardian or conservator (protected consumer). When the freeze is in place, consumer reporting agencies cannot release that person's credit report or any other information regarding that person unless the security freeze is removed. The maximum fee for placing or lifting a freeze for a "protected consumer" is ten dollars ($10.00) for each action. A consumer reporting agency shall not charge any fee if the protected consumer's representative (1) has obtained a police report of alleged identity fraud and the protected consumer is the alleged victim; and (2) provides a copy of the police report to the consumer reporting agency; or a request for the placement or removal of a protected consumer security freeze is for a protected consumer who is under sixteen at the time of the request and the consumer reporting agency has a consumer report pertaining to the protected consumer.