For three decades, I’ve spent the Fourth of July in Texas Hill Country, floating the Frio River with my family and friends.
This year was our 30th anniversary — and the second time in that span that catastrophic flooding forced us out of the water. We were lucky. The emergency alarms sounded. Our home sat 100 feet above the river, and we were safe. But so many others were not.
Lives were lost. Communities were — literally — torn apart. Even now, the full scale of the devastation is difficult to put into words. But what makes it harder is knowing what’s coming next: the fraudsters and scam artists, preying on victims already suffering.
Disasters like this create fertile ground for fraud.
We don’t need a crystal ball to know that, in the days and weeks ahead, bad actors will emerge — some posing as victims to siphon off emergency aid, others impersonating charities, contractors or government officials.
We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. After every hurricane, wildfire, flood or pandemic, fraud follows. It’s not just infuriating — it’s predictable. And what’s worse, it’s preventable.
As someone who works in public policy and digital identity, I’ve seen firsthand how fraudsters — some operating alone, others supported by vast criminal enterprises — exploit outdated systems and identity verification loopholes to steal from disaster survivors and taxpayers.
We know that billions of taxpayer dollars are lost to identity fraud every year, and emergency programs — designed to move fast and help people in crisis — are among the most vulnerable targets. We have seen the massive uptick in disaster aid applications after hurricanes or the California wildfires.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The government has access to modern identity verification tools that can stop fraud before it happens. These tools can instantly verify whether a person is who they say they are — without burdening the real victims who need help the most. Yet too often, those tools go unused or are only partially implemented, leaving wide gaps for fraudsters to exploit.
At a moment when our nation is engaged in a dialogue about stopping waste, fraud and abuse, this is one of the easiest areas to identify and address.
It starts with valuing digital identity — the simple premise at the foundation of the digital economy that says we can and should know if a person signing up for benefits is who they say they are. If they are, they should get the help they need. And if they’re not, they should be stopped. We have the ability to identify the good people and to root out fraud.
The reality is that we should be doing better. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar that doesn’t reach a family that’s lost everything.
For me, this is personal.
The Texas Hill Country is more than a place on the map. It’s part of who I am as a 5th-generation Texan. Seeing it damaged, and knowing it will be damaged again by criminals taking advantage of tragedy, is unacceptable.
If we truly want to honor victims and help communities recover faster, we must act now to harden our systems against identity fraud. That means embracing next-generation tools and taking a zero-tolerance approach to scams in the wake of disasters.
We can’t stop the rain. But we can stop what comes after.
Jennifer Kerber is head of government affairs for Socure, the leading platform for digital identity verification, compliance, and fraud prevention.
