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

Trust us!

[Thud457]

How does someone determine if Choicepoint had data on them?

Initial denial

[SafteyMan]

What really upsets me is how they originally denied that anyone outside of California had their informaion comprimised.

Choice quotes...

[GillBates0]

ChoicePoint maintains personal profiles of nearly every U.S. consumer, which it sells to employers, landlords, marketing companies and about 35 U.S. government agencies.

I love the way marketing companies have more access to my personal information than I do. Moreover, they're among the "legitimate" businesses who the company claims it sells information to -- any dick and harry spammer joint can be called a "marketing company". In other words, if you have enough money to pour down their gullet, you have the information.

The company says its records enable law enforcers to track down serial killers and have helped find 822 missing children.

Yeah, since they help children, they cannot be an irresponsible company.

"The topic of the responsible use of information is a vital one to our society ... we support a national debate on this very topic," ChoicePoint President Doug Curling said.

Classic tangential marketspeak response from the president.

Exactly

[sterno]

They were reporting California because they had absolutely no choice in the matter because of legal requirements in California. It's a very good thing for all people who have information at Choicepoint that California has that law. Otherwise I have little doubt any of us would know about it.

I do wonder if it would be beneficial to indentity thieves to expressly avoid stealing information about California residents to limit knowledge of their efforts. If those 100K people weren't notified by Choicepoint, it'd give them a lot more freedom to exploit that pile of information.

Excellent Timing.

[ackthpt]

Apparently 110,000 people already did.

Meanwhile, in that Bastion of Truth, Justice and the Liberty, Washington DC, George W. Bush signs The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005

<sarcasm>at least america is safe from gay weddings</sarcasm>

This Company is Corrupt

[torrentami]

Does anyone else realize that this is the same company that essentially handed over the 2000 election to George W. Bush? They are the ones who were hired by the florida voting commission to compare the data on federal criminals in the US with those in FL so that the FL federal criminals couldn't vote. Only they botched (on purpose?) it up completely and had a 5% accuracy rate resulting in thousands of voters (mostly black) getting turned away at the polls. Coincidentally (yeah, right) they were awarded a 60 million dollar data sorting job in Iraq once the war started. Funny, if they failed so miserably in FL why would you reward them with a bid in Iraq? This company is a joke.

Re:This Company is Corrupt

[KingSkippus]

Here is a reference to an article on CNN about this. Also, check out the article in the St. Petersburg Times. Last, but not least, check out this article in The Guardian. My favorite quote from the last article: "The controversy [regarding the Bush DoJ paying ChoicePoint $11 million for names, addresses, occupations, DoB, passport numbers, "physical descriptions," tax records, and blood groups of Latin Americans] is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint." Nor, apparently, the last. This was written on May 5, 2003, over a year before this fiasco. How many chances should one company get before they're shut down?

So yeah, this company scares the shit out of me, as does its parent, Equifax. Personal opinion o' me is that they all need to be immediately shut down. If you don't like YOUR personal information being given to anyone with a few bucks, PLEASE write to your government representatives and demand that something real be done NOW to protect our privacy!

P. S. I live about 10 minutes away from Alpharetta, GA, where this company is located. I'm thinking of posting a link to where you can donate pitchforks and torches...

Re:SHUT THEM DOWN

[shanen]

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.

Nice thought, but Dubya would pardon them. After all, this is the same company that put him in the White House in the first place. Or have you forgotten that he claims to have won by 500 votes while ChoicePoint helped disenfranchise thousands of primarily Democratic voters.

(Of course, Dubya's margin was so slim that *LOT'S* of groups can claim discredit for slipping him into the White House. Irregardless of the various culprits, we're all suffering for it now.)

Anyway, as I noted in the earlier thread on this topic, I think we need to establish the principle that *YOU* own the personal data about *YOU*, and no one can use it or sell it without *YOUR* permission. This is actually a logical implication of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. However, to give it teeth, I think we also need to appeal to "Possession is nine points of the law", and *YOU* should be able to store your own data on *YOUR* own computer. Anyone wants to see it, they ask for your permission (or prove they deserve a search warrant).