by a consumer reporting agency. A credit freeze is designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being approved in your name without your consent. If you are actively seeking a new credit, loan, utility, telephone, or insurance account, you should understand that the procedures involved in lifting a credit freeze may slow your applications for such accounts and you should plan ahead and lift a freeze in advance of actually applying for any of these type of accounts. When you place a credit freeze on your consumer report, you will be provided a personal identification number or password to use if you choose to fully remove the freeze on your consumer report or temporarily authorize the release of your consumer report for a period of time after the freeze is in place to a specific party or parties. To provide that authorization you must contact each consumer reporting agency individually and provide your personal identification number or password, proper identification to verify your identity, and the period of time for which you would like the report to be available. A consumer reporting agency must authorize the release of your consumer report no later than 15 minutes after receiving the above information if the request is by toll-free telephone, or secure electronic means, and no later than one business day when a written request is submitted by mail. A credit 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 you have an existing account, that requests information in your consumer report for the purposes of reviewing or collecting the account. Reviewing the account includes activities related to account maintenance. Unless you suspect you have been or are about to become a victim of identity theft, fraud, a related crime, or harmed by the unauthorized disclosure of your financial or personally identifiable information, are an active duty military servicemember, are 65 years of age or older, or as otherwise identified