WP: ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8587-2005Mar4.html

The man on the phone called himself James Garrett.

Speaking with a lilting accent, the man said he was an executive with a Los Angeles company called M.B.S Financial. He told an employee at ChoicePoint Inc. that he wanted to open an online account with the company to receive electronic reports on people.

It was the kind of request that ChoicePoint, one of the nation's largest information services, gets all the time. Thousands of corporate and government clients rely on the company to provide them with publicly available information on people for help in hiring, fraud detection, journalist research, national security and debt collection.

But the man's call last fall was different, according to a detective's description of the encounter and testimony presented in a later court hearing. Unknown to ChoicePoint, the caller was not Garrett, an actor in the Los Angeles area. Police said he was a con artist involved in a vast identity-theft scam that succeeded in making off with records of at least 145,000 people. The real Garrett was just another victim.

The imposter's attempt to gain access to even more files would not only expose the scam, but spark a national outrage and congressional hearings over whether the nation's growing commercial data industry is doing enough to guard personal information.

I tried to call Acxiom, no way to get through. I was told I could not undo mailings to me. Acxiom needs to be investigated too. Acxiom is the only company I know that has a fence surrounding their building with a guard gate at their entrance. I don't think Motorola does this.

there is something not right there. Choicepoint and Acxiom are the same.

along with a company Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe ...


http://www.usis.com/
on the right-hand column under 'Investor Relations'

wonder what's in their database? wonder who has access??

"US Investigations Services calls itself the largest personnel security firm in the country. You've probably never heard of them. The company keeps a very low profile. Its headquarters is located in an underground bunker in a mountain in Butler County."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7053386/


"Formerly the Office of Federal Investigations, USIS is a fully private, commercial company with over 5,600 dedicated and highly trained full-time employees operating from more than 185 locations through out the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U. S. Virgin Islands."
http://www.intelligencecareers.com/careerfairs/index_careerevent.cfm?cfevid=58

Acxiom, whose website claims its database of information on 176 million Americans is the most comprehensive available, collects information from public records, private companies, the Postal Service and product warranty cards, said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61240,00.html


I suspect Accenture might be in the data-collection business, but not sure ... and, they're headquartered in Bermuda. Some Canadians have voiced concern w/Accenture: "Does the Accenture deal give the FBI access to our personal files". http://www.citizensforpublicpower.ca/articles/may04pluggedin.html

“The real advantage with RFID comes from how a company integrates and uses the data it is collecting. ...”Marco Ziegler, Accenture
http://www.clearorbit.com/files/COIntegratedRFIDSol.pdf

Someone posted a bunch of ChoicePoint info here:
"Choice Point is into all kinds of nasty sub rosa operations"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x331359#331831

According to an Accenture study on the differences between business and consumers perceptions about privacy and trust, businesses are collecting more information than ever before and they're not sure they should have it. For instance, 40 percent of companies surveyed collect consumers' birth dates, yet only 18 percent of those companies think they are entitled to that data. And while only 12 percent of businesses believe they are entitled to social security numbers, 34 percent surveyed collect them anyway.
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=services%5Ctechnology%5Cvision%5Cprivacy_matters.xml

fwiw, I wrote my Senator complaining about our private identities being stolen every day by these companies ... and, now, how ironic, that stolen info has been stolen ... I say end it ASAP.

Jackson Stephens

http://www.worldnewsstand.net/MediumRare/22.htm

Isn't this really backdoor for CIA domestic spying ?