ChoicePoint Identity Theft Fallout Widens

dstates writes "A unique California law forced ChoicePoint to reveal that a break-in had compromised accounts revealing personal information on 40,000 southern californians and leading to more than 750 cases of identity theft. The company initially denied that the break-in compromised consumers outside of California, but CNN is now reporting that 110,000 accounts nationally have been compromised. 'The irony appears to be that ChoicePoint has not done its own due diligence in verifying the identities of those 'businesses' that apply to be customers,' said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. 'They're not doing the very thing they claim their service enables their customers to achieve.'"

Comments

SHUT THEM DOWN

[centipetalforce]

Serirously- this isn't paperclips these people are selling ITS YOUR PERSONAL DATA. They need to be closed, and whoever responsible needs to go to jail- and everyone involved in covering up the crime deserves to live in poverty for the rest of their fucking lives.

+750 in California alone!

[thinkliberty]

"leading to more than 750 cases of identity theft." I wonder how many total cases of identity theft this incident will cause.

The only way to know is to notify all people that had their identity stolen. All 50 states need to have a ID theft law like California.

denied?

[fireduck]

"The company initially denied that the break-in compromised consumers outside of California"

Did they actually deny that no one outside of California was compromised, or was it just that they weren't legally obligated to inform anyone outside of the state? From Monday's story, I got the distinct impression that it was the latter (i.e., no legal obligation), rather than outright deception. Regardless, it's still a really crappy thing to have happened.

(on a personal note, given that the break-in happened months ago, and i just got my yearly free credit reports from the 3 agencies and didn't see anything suspicious, I guess I'm a lucky SoCalifornian...)

Manifest Destiny

[Doc Ruby]

These kinds of California "sunshine" laws are also the only reason we found out about Enron before it took the whole US economy, not just Houston, down with it. Enron was required by California law, under their misnamed "deregulation" system, to open its books, because it was supplying a lot of energy to Californians. Enron refused, claiming that, as a Texas company, it was not under California jurisdiction. That was when Governor Davis famously asked the Federal Department of Energy to step in, to resolve this interstate conflict. The DOE refused to referee, and Davis eventually found other means to force open Enron's books. When they were reviewed, not only was $8B in California overcharges revealed, but the entire network of Enron debt-laundering was exposed. As well as the rest of their system-gaming that took them out.

California is far from perfect. But their 35M consumers are unusually well protected by laws in the public interest. The economy of California scale forces car makers around the country, and around the world, to comply with their higher standards. Perhaps we will see California's own self interest protect us from other scams like these, as we all get closer to the Golden State.