# SNAP Theft Protection Act of 2023

If you receive food assistance through SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps), this bill is designed to protect you if your benefits get stolen. Right now, if someone uses identity theft or skimming techniques to steal your SNAP benefits from your electronic benefit transfer card, you might lose that money with little recourse. This bill would change that by requiring the government to replace stolen benefits so you don't go hungry because of fraud you didn't commit.

The bill works by instructing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create clear rules for how states should identify when SNAP benefits have been stolen through identity theft or card skimming (a technique where criminals secretly capture your card information). Once those rules are in place, state agencies would be required to reissue the stolen benefits back to households that meet the criteria for fraud. Essentially, if a criminal drains your SNAP card, you'd get those benefits restored rather than being out of luck.

The bill also requires the government to study and report back to Congress about how often this theft happens and whether new card technology—like microchips embedded in cards alongside the traditional magnetic stripe—could better protect people's benefits in the future. The idea is to make SNAP cards harder to hack while keeping them easy for legitimate users to access. The government would need to submit reports showing how many households got their benefits restored and the total dollar amount involved, giving Congress a clear picture of how big this problem actually is.

SNAP Theft Protection Act of 2023

Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch

SNAP Theft Protection Act of 2023 This bill directs the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish criteria for state agencies to identify Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits stolen by identity theft or typical skimming practices and provide for the reissuance of stolen SNAP benefits to households that meet such criteria. USDA must periodically review and modify its regulations to take into account evolving technology and the threat landscape to better protect against theft.