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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.'"
ChoicePoint: "Who goes there?"
Voice: "Thurston Howell III"
ChoicePoint: "A likely story!"
Voice: "Sherlock Holmes"
ChoicePoint: "We weren't born yesterday!"
Voice: "Landshark"
ChoicePoint: "That's better, here's 35,000 files, let us know if you need anymore."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
How does someone determine if Choicepoint had data on them?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"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.
"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...)
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.
--
make install -not war
Actually, you can receive a copy of your profile.
This page on the ChoicePoint web site points to Choicetrust. (Insert joke about the mane choice here)
From the Choicepoint web site:
FACT Act Compliance
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) was enacted in 2003 and amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal law that regulates, in part, who is permitted to access your consumer report information and how it can be used. The FACT Act entitles consumers to obtain one free copy of his/her consumer file from certain consumer reporting agencies during each 12-month period.
ChoicePoint has three separate companies that maintain consumer files that are subject to the free disclosure requirement: C.L.U.E. Inc. maintains information on insurance claims histories, ChoicePoint WorkPlace Solutions Inc. maintains employment history information, and Resident Data Inc. maintains tenant history information. Each of these companies designed an easy process for consumers to request their free file disclosure.
Please note that a consumer file does not necessarily exist for you with any one of the three companies. For example, if you have not filed a claim with your auto or home insurance company during the last five years, we will not have a report on you. If you have not applied for employment with a customer that we serve, we likely will not have an employment history report on you. If you have not submitted a residential lease application with a customer that we serve, we will likely not have a tenant history report on you.
To request copies of your claims history report, visit www.ChoiceTrust.com or call 1-866-312-8076.
To request a copy of your employment history report, call 1-866-312-8075.
To request a copy of your tenant history report, call 1-877-448-5732.
If you would prefer to send your request by mail, please send your name and address to the appropriate address below. A report request form will be sent to you to complete and return.
For claims history reports:
ChoicePoint Consumer Disclosure Center
P.O. Box 105295
Atlanta, GA 30348
For employment history reports:
ChoicePoint WorkPlace Solutions Consumer Disclosure Center
P.O. Box 105292
Atlanta, GA 30348
For tenant history reports:
Resident Data Consumer Disclosure Center
P.O. Box 850126
Richardson, TX 75085-0126
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
That they're announcing that they're 'only' informing 100,000 other US residents can be explained in any of the following ways:
- The attacks were focused on CA residents, for some reason.
- They have only identified 100,000 people this week, and there's another 3 weeks of work to do.
- They are willfully underreporting the actual numbers and hoping that nobody will do the research to prove them wrong.
- Given that the law doesn't require them to inform everybody who got hit, they're only informing those non CA residents who got hit the worst. 2/3 of the people who would have been informed under CA law will never know...
The most interesting information is between the lines. Learn to read there more often. ("Diplomacy is the art of telling a lion 'Nice kitty kitty' while you search for a big rock. Media relations is doing for a company what a diplomat does for a country.")Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
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...
- Derek V. Smith (CEO)
is your man. Also available via Google:Phone: (770) 752-0881
Address: 15120 N Valleyfield Rd, Alpharetta, GA 30004
- David Lee (Executive VP)
- David W. Davis (Corp. Sec and VP, Government Affairs)
So, if any um... parents of those 822 missing children recovered would like to call and, uh... thank them, well, there you go.Phone: (770) 594-7838, (770) 594-9090
Address: 230 Ridge Point Ct, Alpharetta, GA 30022
Phone: (678) 366-9445
Address: 3325 Cedar Farms Ct, Alpharetta, GA 30004