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Background-Check Software Goes Retail
Makarand writes "According to this article in the Mercury News, ChoicePoint Inc.,
one of the nation's largest vendors of personal, financial and legal data is attempting to
mass market a
background-check software tool-kit which can be used to tap into ChoicePoint's online
databases. Choicepoint requires that you have a business license to run a small business to use this software.
However, as users of these services are rarely audited or asked to produce their business license, the purchaser can potentially
conduct criminal background checks, Social Security number identification and other checks on anyone for a small fee. Privacy advocates are cautioning that making background-check software a consumer product could
easily put personal information into the wrong hands."
I'm as good as fired when my boss sees my childpr0n conviction!
Honestly, how many people lie to their employers? Kinda bugs me.
When you say "society", I hope you are just referring to the United States. You people in the US are so paranoid!
Knowledge of each of us is only valuable if distribution is limited. If everybody knows everything about everybody, lots of problems simply go away: people are suddenly no longer able to use irrelevant superficial criteria to make decisions if the expect to succeed. (Those naive zealots who continue to do so will fail when all the dirty, scummy, real people out there with actual skills get hired up by their competators.)
Everybody has to grow up in a world where this data is free.
Key point in the ideal being that the data has to be free. Cheap and ubiquitous is a good first step toward free.
Everybody always focusses on "no data collected" as the right answer for building a good world. "All data public," I think, makes an equally good, perhaps more mature, world.
We all watched how "potential" employers used their access to the social security IDs from job applications submited to various job sites.
Imagine how much more effective and automated will be to impersonate someone having access to this wealth of information.
What happened to the Civil Rights?
What they are doing is offering a service for a fee, a service they know many people will buy. They are also passing the responsibility onto the user to "be honest that they are using the information for legit cause." Plus they make you fax some form and have a company employee verify the data. I'm sorry but I'm sure they will have a minimum wage or slightly better person to "verify" these requests. It just seems like a company even though is legally correct it putting the burden of proof to the user, are just making a bad decision for all consumers. Like many will say, this will make it allot easier to track people down, get some revenge, and do worse things.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Well lets see take a college database of student IDs, run it through this and you have probably 8,000 viable people to rip off. And for all of you who think that the university closely protects our data, i cant tell you how many times a teacher will post grades by SSN or even seen name and SSN. I try to explain to them that its illegal, and against university policies but i gave up when the university posted a list of kids by social security numbers. Dont need to slip for someone to get my data, idiots like that give it out for free.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
It is usually fairly trivial to find out interesting information about someone, especially if you have something like a person's job application in front of them. While all the information there is self voulenteered, it is likely to be at least substantially correct. This contains a plethora of potential leads. It is even easier if you do not contrain yourself to bounds of law and misrepresent yourself on the phone.
You simply call up their previous/current employers, their surnames if the surname is unusual, and their neighbors. One blabby former/current coworker or relation will tell you lots of what you want to know. A proverbial little old lady who lives across the street can If you have access to credit reports, there is also additional fun stuff in there. Credit reports vary in accuracy and completeness, the information there needs verification but there are plenty of good leads there.
Don't forget your public records, like tax assessors, VCIS for bankruptcy filings, and my personal favorite resource: research desks at libraries if you are dealing with a geographic area for which you are not familiar. Research desk librarians usually live for answering odd questions for random people and are usually pretty cool people to boot.
-- benton.
A lot of businesses already require your tax history before they will consider hiring you...
Some even do ongoing investigations, and know who your friends are...
( speaking form experience here.. it shocked me when I discovered they were doing it.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sure, maybe they have good intentions, but really??? I am 21 yrs old and have a Federal Tax ID to run a business (obtained for free through the IRS) and I can obtain a legitamite business license for around $50. So another words, I could use my FREE Tax ID and cheap business license to get this software and run background checks on anybody I want?? All I need is a social?? And a "forged" application of some sort (in case of an audit, I can "prove" they applied). Gee, save me some time researching on the internet. /me doesn't exist. You don't know me..
I'm a ghost... no really, I am. I love my privacy so LEAVE ME ALONE!! Take this software out of production.
The way I see it, this is ultimately a good thing. Right now, most people are totally unaware of how much info is out there about them, because it's not trivial for any random person to get. What they don't realize is that almost anyone could get this type of info if they wanted.
In the long run, this should make people realize what information about someone cannot be trusted as actually identifying that person... then maybe fewer people will think that their mother's maiden name is a good way to restrict access to important things like their utility accounts.
From http://nationalalertregistry.com/
A neighbor could be one of the 9 registered sex offenders located in your immediate area. Find out who they are, where they live and see their photo.
We used a 3 mile radius from the center of your zip, your Member Map will pinpoint them exactly. With full membership you will be able to specify a full address and the radius.
That's for the zip-code 20500 (1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC.. Otherwise known as the White House).
Just so you know.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
How accurate is this information? This is an important consideration. I could see a use for this in gunshops, for example. It'd probably be a lot faster than making a call to NICS, and cut down on government expenses for staffing NICS. But what if the information is wrong or incomplete? Likewise with employment.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
True, however a business is essentially a person (TaxID and all) without a conscience. As you can see from the last several years of business indictments people do things running a business that are extremely unethical and quite often illegal. When everything is done for the contributing businesses and nothing for the people (or consumers as business likes to say), we end up fucking each other for the almighty dollar.
And that's different from normal people how? Most of the people I meet on any given day are selfish and will screw their fellow man for the almighty dollar. Lack of ethics in the business world is not an effect of being in business, it's simply an extension of a person's morals or lack thereof.
This is really more of a packaging / marketing /merchandising issue, than a technical or even a legal issue.
This could very well become a legal nightmare for this company.
I remember a case about a year or so ago where a family of a girl that was stalked and eventually murdered sued an "information broker" for aiding in her wrongful death. Not only was this guy able to get SSN, workplace info, etc, but one of these brokers actually called the victims mother to scam information out of her.
Now that this can be done easier than placing an order for it, I would expect to hear more on the issue.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
And you posted this as an AC ? Where TF is the full dislosure of information ?
You, my friend, are a complete hypocrite.
Yeah, Spamhaus isn't a blacklist either. Where's my centralized site to check to see what doctors have been sued or cited by their state board of healing arts for malpractice or misconduct?
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Given that ChoicePoint is the same sleazy outfit that conspired with the Bush family and the GOP to corrupt Florida's election results in 2000 (see this article and others), it's too late to keep it out of the wrong hands, and also explains why they have no qualms about irresponsibly allowing any (other) crook to get their hands on it. Pathetic.
I get very angry at all the hatred I see on /. for anyone who makes a lot of money.
You know what, so did I once upon a time. And back then I even supported tax cuts for the rich because I bought the argument that the money would be invested to create American jobs.
Imagine my surprise when it became clear that the rich don't give a flying fuck about their fellow citizens. After hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich WHERE ARE THE JOBS??? Hint: not on this continent!
The "genius" of the American system is that it gives just big enough piece of the action to the average guy to support the illusion that they have a real stake in the system i.e. The Corporate State. Well it is bullshit! The bottom 90% of Americans own less that 15% of corporate stock and that includes 401k, IRAs, pension plans, etc. And corporate officers aren't getting paid 10 or 20 times the average worker but THOUSANDS of times the average worker!
American corporation and the rich? FUCK THEM, the sooner the better!
Many municipalities, including mine, don't require businesses to be licensed. What's to keep any customer who buys the package from saying he's from such a place?
IMO, one of the most valuable pieces of information available in the future will be personal information associated with static IP addresses. I suspect many entities are busy compiling "IP databases" and this would be a product that could be of great use to both businesses and individuals who might want to identify users on their web sites, people on IM/IRC systems, or the senders of pseudo-anonymous e-mail.
Even a single company like Amazon.com likely has a huge database of IP addresses associated with detailed customer information (imagine if an information broker started consolidating this information across many sites). Due to the almost non-existant privacy laws in this respect, Amazon, or anyone could sell this information. You get an e-mail from someone you don't like? With their IP address you can get their name, address, phone number, etc. Anyone who wants to gather a mailing list of people who have visited their web site can run a cross-reference of the web logs against these sorts of databases. As more people move to DSL and cable, with static IPs, a database of this nature becomes the missing link to make most Internet activity un-anonymous.
I would rather have EVERYONE check each other than only large corporations (or wealthy elites) have the capability.
;), I can get this information).
NOTE: Everything I say is only about things that can be accessed by any wealthy individual or a corporation. I am TOTALLY AGAINST some entity, say the government, collecting new information. Everything I speak of is with regards to existing "personal information". I am not in favour of letting people spy on each other with totally private information (eg. your medical records).
Right now, large corporations and welathy elites (usually by hiring private "specialists") can check someone's SIN (Social Insurance Number) number and things like that. Basically any corporation can do this. In contrast, the typical citizen cannot do these things. This is very unfair for the average person. If I start a bogus business, I can check someone's SIN number but if I don't have a business I can't. What sort of lunacy is this? Obviously no one has said anything about this issue because the clueless masses have no idea what is going on.
By lowering the cost for doing these things, the average person can start spying on each other. This sounds bad on the surface but it is good (no, this isn't some Orweillian double-think at work). The best world is when you have absolute privacy or no privacy!!! Anything in between can be manipulated (usually by so-called "authorities" who are just a bunch of elites).
If someone can spy on me, or access my "personal information*" then I want to spy on them in return. This is only fair!!!!!!!!
I realize that what I said sounds dumb... but think about it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai (* Note that so-called personal information is not very personal since anyone (businesses, wealthy people, etc) can access them. Your SIN number, for example, is NOT private. You might think it is safe but it's not. If I was rich, or had contacts, or ran the country
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places