Leave and Earning Statements (LES) for all service members and Defense Department civilians.

Leave and Earning Statements (LES) for all service members and Defense Department civilians, and paychecks for military retirees will easily have more protection against identity theft.

throughout the next several weeks, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service will globule the first five digits of a person's social security number from all hard transcript pay statements and checks to guard against identity theft.

"The changes apply to everyone" said Patrick T Shine, acting director, Defense Finance and Accounting Service. The proposal "originated internally and will be phased in from one side of to the other the next couple of pay periods."

This change is for all hard archetype leave and earning statements. This does not apply to electronic copies of statements set up on myPay, the online combination of parts to form a whole for access and control of customers' personal pay information (https://mypay.dfas.mil).

Reports of identity theft have substantially increased in late years, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which monitors the issue.

Five years ago, the number of complaints to the FTC was roughly 23400 by way of 2001, the rate had more than tripled to about 86200 Based onward figures released in January 2004 the number of complaints of identity theft nearly topped 215000 for 2003 The Social Security administration also has taken the same pace of eliminating the first live social security numbers onward the millions of checks it issues.

For more information about the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, visit www.dfas.mil.

Story courtesy of the public affairs office, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

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