Identity Theft & Privacy: , Opinion:

More on the ID theft facilitated by ChoicePoint

Here's more on the ChoicePoint ID theft problem that I first posted about a few days ago. From the Associated Press via MSNBC.com:

ChoicePoint: ID theft could be extensive
Residents in 50 states, D.C., territories may be affected
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:36 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2005

ATLANTA - ChoicePoint Inc., under fire for being duped into allowing criminals to access its massive database of personal information, said Monday that consumers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories may have been affected by the breach of the company's credentialing process. The data warehouser also announced plans to rescreen 17,000 business customers to make sure they are legitimate.

ChoicePoint said it is almost done notifying by mail all of the potential victims. California authorities have said as many as 500,000 people may have been affected, but ChoicePoint disputes that number.

"All I can tell you is our number is roughly 145,000, and we know that we're over-notifying," ChoicePoint marketing director James Lee said. "There will be duplications in there."

Last week, attorneys general in 38 states demanded ChoicePoint inform all affected consumers that they might vulnerable to identity theft amid concerns the company was foot-dragging. Politicians have also become involved, with two U.S. senators calling for hearings and stepped-up regulations to protect consumers.

As for the rescreening, ChoicePoint said any business that is not publicly traded or not a government agency will have to be recredentialed to use its services.

"It will involve the revalidation of any information they previously provided as well as requests for additional information," Lee said. "Certain customers will receive site visits, but I can't be more specific than that because we don't want to reveal too much."

He said it could take up to 60 days to recredential the affected customers.

Once recredentialed, those customers will no longer receive access to consumers' Social Security numbers, dates of birth and driver's license numbers unless they are sponsored by a public company or government agency, Lee said.

The company said in a statement that it is seeking to "remove information in those segments where organized crime fraud is likely to occur."

I want to know why Social Security numbers were included in the information that was being distributed in the first place.

The most discomforting part is next, though:

The customers affected represent less than 5 percent of the company's $900 million in annual revenue.

Formed in 1997 as a spinoff of credit reporting agency Equifax Inc., ChoicePoint has 19 billion public records in its database at its suburban Atlanta headquarters, including everything from motor vehicle registrations, license and deed transfers, military records, names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

If you see a problem with this, too, then please write your Senator and Representative to tell them that this situation is unacceptable.