When you lock your file, you are effectively shutting out criminals from tapping your credit without your knowledge and running up bills in your name.

Until now, however, many Utahns have elected to forgo this important protection because of the hassle and delays involved in locking their files and temporarily unlocking them for legitimate reasons - such as before applying for a car loan, mortgage or credit card, or even signing up for a new cell-phone contract. Then they have to seal them afterward.

The locking and unlocking used to involve providing documentation on your identity to each of the credit bureaus through regular mail. The process took several days, which made it impossible to take out instant credit in a department store or to make a spur-of-the-moment car purchase using a dealer's financing.

That's where the new Utah law comes in. Credit bureaus now must unlock a Utahn's credit file within 15 minutes after a request.

"Utah pioneered this key provision, and it makes a security freeze a much easier choice," said Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney for Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Not only that, but Utah's law and those passed by other states with other types of requirements also have prompted the bureaus to make the entire process of locking and unlocking credit files more consumer friendly. It's happened in stages, with the most dramatic occurring in recent months when all three bureaus put in place easy Internet-based and phone-based systems that allow users to lock and unlock files within minutes.

Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, couldn't be happier. "It's the only truly proactive way to protect your credit, your identity."

Walker has been pushing for years to give consumers more access to their credit files. In the 2005 legislative session she introduced legislation that for the first time would give Utahns the right to lock their credit reports. But the nation's credit bureaus and numerous creditors lobbied against the measure - because it would add another layer of compliance - ensuring its death in the waning hours of the session.

"The credit bureaus came back time and time again to try and kill this legislation," said Walker, recalling hearings packed with bureau representatives who had flown in for the day to argue against the measure.

She was back the next year, having solidified the support of heavyweights such as Larry Miller, his auto dealer comrades and furniture and electronics retailing giant RC Willey, among others.

These credit grantors initially opposed Walker's legislation out of fear that consumers who lock their files wouldn't be able to unlock them easily and quickly enough to make spur-of-the-moment purchases with instant credit financing.

So Walker wrote the 15-minute unlock requirement into her bill. Credit bureaus really weren't crazy about that, but in the end, Walker, with her team of supporters at the state level, got her bill passed.

Her one major concession to the credit bureaus was a two-year waiting period for the law to go into effect.

But now the wait is over.

"It's truly exciting to see something like this, that has taken so long, that's now not only benefiting Utah, but other states as well," Walker said. This is going to be the national standard."

There still is one step the credit bureaus haven't taken to make the process easier - creating a centralized site so consumers don't have to contact three different bureaus to freeze their credit files.

The bureaus have set up one site - annualcreditreport.com - to comply with federal law requiring each bureau to release one free credit report per year to consumers. But they haven't done the same with respect to security freezes.

Consumers who want to freeze or lock their credit files must go to each bureau's site - Experian.com, Equifax.com and Transunion.com - and make separate requests. And fees vary, although the bureaus generally will waive fees if a consumer has been the victim of identity fraud.

A recent test of each bureau's Internet-based security freeze systems revealed some important differences.

Equifax required that Utahns input only minimal information to verify their identities, and after providing a credit card number and agreeing to pay a $10 charge, five minutes later a credit file was locked. Experian also placed the freeze fairly quickly for a $10 fee.

If you use the Internet, the nation's third credit bureau, TransUnion, freezes an individual's credit file for free. But the bureau asks a fairly lengthy battery of questions to verify a consumer's identity before granting the request. Total time invested with TransUnion was 12 minutes, including time spent looking up account numbers and other specific information.

Still, it should take a consumer no more than a half-hour to lock his or her credit file at each of the three bureaus - a vastly quicker and easier process than even a year ago.

Because it's so easy, costly credit-monitoring services are even less worth the money now, consumer advocates say.

Such services, which typically cost $10 or more per month up to several hundred dollars a year, alert consumers to any suspicious activity on their credit reports. Most consumer advocates recommend a security freeze instead.

Freezes also render fraud "alerts" virtually obsolete, as well. Such notices are designed to inform creditors to take extra precaution verifying an applicant's identity when issuing credit.

But like credit monitoring, a fraud alert doesn't come close to the protections afforded by a freeze.

For Hillebrand of Consumers Union, the enactment of the Utah law should give Utahns one more reason to consider locking their files.

"Everyone should consider it. And most people are going to want to do it."

lesley@sltrib.com