Sony Giving I.D. Theft Insurance to PSN Users

Another day… and still no PSN.

With Sony’s investigation into the cyber attack that took down PlayStation Network still ongoing, the electronics giant has revealed some details about the “Welcome Back” package that all PSN users will soon be receiving. Among Sony’s gifts to woo you back to PSN: $1 million in identity theft insurance for one year. Free.

The Welcome Back package is also said to include a free month of PSN Plus to all users, at least one free game download from the PSN Store, and extensions on current subscriptions to make up for gamers’ lost play time.

But the insurance thing is undoubtedly the gift that’s raising the most eyebrows among gamers. The year-long insurance policy comes via a deal between Sony and AllClear ID, a company that offers both free and premium (paid-for) identity theft insurance. The very notion that every single use of PSN will get a free insurance policy that could extend all the way up to a cool million — should a user find themselves the victim of identity theft during that free year — is pretty staggering. I can’t even imagine what this deal must be costing Sony, even with a presumed “special deal” discount of some kind.

Sony says that over the next few days, PSN users will be receiving emails instructing them on how to take advantage of this policy, and they’ll have until June 18th to redeem this free gift. Only U.S. gamers will benefit from this deal with AllClear, but similar deals are currently being negotiated for users from other countries.

PSN is expected to be restored sometime in the next few days, after more than two weeks of nonexistence.