Specifications

Fraud Alert / Security Freeze

A fraud alert or security freeze on a file is honored before any report goes out.

What it ensures

A security freeze is a consumer’s deliberate lock on their file, and a fraud alert is a flag that demands identity verification. This control honors both before furnishing — withholding a frozen report and routing a fraud-alert case through verification.

It ensures a consumer’s own protective choices aren’t quietly run past at the moment of furnishing.

Watch it run

A report request comes in on a consumer whose file carries a security freeze.

Illustrative run — one case moving through the Fraud Alert / Security Freeze specification.

Freeze check No restriction Furnished Freeze honored
Permitted transition Forbidden move Start Terminal state
A fraud alert or security freeze on a file is honored before any report is furnished. Furnishing over a freeze is in red.
✕ Furnish anyway 1 ✓ Request 2 ✓ Restriction check 3 ✓ Honored
Ready

A report request arrives on a consumer whose file is checked for alerts and freezes.

  1. Ready

    The request

    A routine pull — but this consumer may have locked their file against exactly this.

  2. Permitted

    A freeze is on file

    The consumer placed a freeze — a deliberate lock the agency must honor.

  3. Blocked

    The wrong move

    The request looks ordinary, so the freeze is easy to run past. Furnishing over a freeze — or ignoring a fraud alert’s verification step — is refused.

    Where it comes from

    A consumer can place a fraud alert or a national security freeze; the freeze bars release of the report, and a fraud alert requires the user to verify the consumer’s identity before extending credit.

    What it satisfies

    Refusing to furnish over a freeze honors §1681c-1(i); routing a fraud-alert case through identity verification honors §1681c-1(a) and (h).

    FCRA §1681c-1(i) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(i) — national security freeze The national security freeze (added in 2018): once a consumer places a freeze, a consumer reporting agency may not release the consumer’s report, or information derived from it, without the consumer’s authorization. U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗ §1681c-1(a) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(a)(1)(A) — fraud alert …include a fraud alert in the file of that consumer, and also provide that alert along with any credit score generated in using that file, for a period of not less than 1 year… U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗ §1681c-1(h) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(h)(1)(B)(ii) — user verification …a user of such consumer report shall contact the consumer using that telephone number or take reasonable steps to verify the consumer’s identity… U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗
  4. Honored

    Honored

    The lock holds. The report doesn’t go out without the consumer’s authorization.

  5. On the record

    The proof

    The file shows the freeze was honored, not overridden.

Why it holds

Why the whole holds

No single check makes a freeze meaningful. What holds is that a frozen file can’t be furnished without the consumer lifting the freeze. Reliability isn’t catching the alert in time; it’s that furnishing over a freeze has no path.

Why it matters

Furnishing over a national security freeze, or ignoring a fraud alert’s verification duty, violates §1681c-1 — and defeats the consumer’s primary defense against identity theft.