ChoicePoint has also bought tri-buruea credit reports and a one year credit monitoring service for each person whose information might have been compromised. That way each person will know right away if someone tries to steal their identity.
I would expect that his group of people would know by now not to take everything they read in the news at face value. Since that does not seem to be the case, I would just like to correct several errors of fact in this blurb about the ChoicePoint incident. First of all, ChoicePoint did not get hacked. There was no breach of our network and no internal or customer information was compromised. Second, ChoicePoint is not a private firm; we are a public company and trade on NYSE as CPS. Third, I think it erroneous to call this a 'scandal' as ChoicePoint did nothing illegal. We ourselves were a victim of fraud, and we are working very closely with law enforcement to continue to track down and prosecute the perpetrators of this crime. Finally, we ourselves are, and have been for years, encouraging a national discussion on this industry and strongly support independent regulation.
As others have mentioned, we have notified about 145,000 people nationwide that their information might have been compromised and we have, at our own expense, purchased tri-bureau credit reports and a one year credit monitoring service for each of them. We also, as our CEO has said in interview, are not ruling anything out in terms of what we may do to further assist those who do fall victims of identity theft. Please, if you have more questions on what is going on and what ChoicePoint is doing about it please visit http://www.choicepoint.com/news/statement_0205_1.h tml
A couple other bits of note:
There are laws in place, namely the FCRA (Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act), that do already regulate what constitutes permissible purposes for information to be disclosed. We operate very strictly by these regulations already in place. In addition, the FACT Act, which went into effect in 2004, mandates that consumers may obtain free copies of their reports and may, as they always have been able to, contest items they believe to be inaccurate. You can visit www.choicetrust.com to review your personal records kept by ChoicePoint.
And for those of you who are interested in some of the work ChoicePoint does to fulfill our vision of creating a safer and more secure society through the responsible use of information:
-We, as previously noted, operate the CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) database to which insurance underwriters contribute claims data so that they can more accurately assess risk to keep premiums low.
-We operate Volunteer Select, a service for non profit organizations. Background checks may be purchased at cost (ChoicePoint makes no profit) on volunteers to ensure that a convicted child molester two weeks out of jail will not be able to volunteer to work with young children (a real example).
-We operate ChoicePoint Cares which funds DNA testing to solve cold cases and process rape kits that local municipalities cannot afford to process on their own. Our funding has lead to several convictions and has helped to free those wrongly imprisoned.
-We operate ADAM an alert program that had lead to the safe return of more than 800 missing and kidnapped children.
Slashdot Mirror
ChoicePoint has also bought tri-buruea credit reports and a one year credit monitoring service for each person whose information might have been compromised. That way each person will know right away if someone tries to steal their identity.
I would expect that his group of people would know by now not to take everything they read in the news at face value. Since that does not seem to be the case, I would just like to correct several errors of fact in this blurb about the ChoicePoint incident. First of all, ChoicePoint did not get hacked. There was no breach of our network and no internal or customer information was compromised. Second, ChoicePoint is not a private firm; we are a public company and trade on NYSE as CPS. Third, I think it erroneous to call this a 'scandal' as ChoicePoint did nothing illegal. We ourselves were a victim of fraud, and we are working very closely with law enforcement to continue to track down and prosecute the perpetrators of this crime. Finally, we ourselves are, and have been for years, encouraging a national discussion on this industry and strongly support independent regulation.
h tml
As others have mentioned, we have notified about 145,000 people nationwide that their information might have been compromised and we have, at our own expense, purchased tri-bureau credit reports and a one year credit monitoring service for each of them. We also, as our CEO has said in interview, are not ruling anything out in terms of what we may do to further assist those who do fall victims of identity theft. Please, if you have more questions on what is going on and what ChoicePoint is doing about it please visit http://www.choicepoint.com/news/statement_0205_1.
A couple other bits of note:
There are laws in place, namely the FCRA (Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act), that do already regulate what constitutes permissible purposes for information to be disclosed. We operate very strictly by these regulations already in place. In addition, the FACT Act, which went into effect in 2004, mandates that consumers may obtain free copies of their reports and may, as they always have been able to, contest items they believe to be inaccurate. You can visit www.choicetrust.com to review your personal records kept by ChoicePoint.
And for those of you who are interested in some of the work ChoicePoint does to fulfill our vision of creating a safer and more secure society through the responsible use of information:
-We, as previously noted, operate the CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) database to which insurance underwriters contribute claims data so that they can more accurately assess risk to keep premiums low.
-We operate Volunteer Select, a service for non profit organizations. Background checks may be purchased at cost (ChoicePoint makes no profit) on volunteers to ensure that a convicted child molester two weeks out of jail will not be able to volunteer to work with young children (a real example).
-We operate ChoicePoint Cares which funds DNA testing to solve cold cases and process rape kits that local municipalities cannot afford to process on their own. Our funding has lead to several convictions and has helped to free those wrongly imprisoned.
-We operate ADAM an alert program that had lead to the safe return of more than 800 missing and kidnapped children.