Choicepoint Roundup
Well, I’ve tried going cold turkey, but wasn’t getting positive reinforcement, so I stopped.
- Let’s start from the positive, shall we? Chris Hoofnagle of EPIC is quoted in a positive light in “ChoicePoint says it’s securing public’s personal data better” in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Now that that’s out of the way.
- Science Daily tells us that the Illinois State Police have cancelled a contract with Choicepoint subsidiary Bode, citing lack of quality control in their DNA testing, in “Illinois police say lab’s work faulty.” The Washington Post also reports on the story, in “Ill. Police Claim Lab Botched DNA Tests“:
Illinois authorities conducted quality checks on 51 of 1,200 rape kits Bode had said contained no semen, Brown said. They discovered that 11 of the tests, or nearly 22 percent, had simply failed to detect the semen.
- The San Jose Mercury news “Man faces more charges in ChoicePoint fraud scheme:”
A Nigerian man who pleaded no contest earlier this year for his role in a fraud ring that stole data from ChoicePoint Inc. has pleaded not guilty to six new charges, authorities said.
Olatunji Oluwatosin, 42, was charged last week in Superior Court and has pleaded not guilty to additional counts of identity theft, conspiracy and grand theft. If convicted of all the charges, he could face up to 18 years in prison.
- The LA Times reports that “Choicepoint Signals Stepped-Up Probe,” that the SEC is now “investigating,” a step-up from its former “informal inquiry.”
- The Chicago Tribune carries (reg-free!) a story from LA Times reporter Joseph Menn, “Firms Hit by ID Theft Find Way to Cash In on Victims:”
Elizabeth Rosen was plenty angry when ChoicePoint Inc. sent her a form letter acknowledging that crooks might have perused some of her most sensitive personal and financial data.
But the Hollywood nurse was flabbergasted when the company, one of the nation’s largest collectors of consumer records, also offered to sell her some of the same information so she could see what might have been compromised.
He goes on to discuss the petulant manner in which the industry is implementing the FACTA rules:
“We don’t make use of domain names that are close to, or are misspellings of, ‘annualcreditreport’ to try to create business,” said TrueCredit President John Danaher. Asked about TransUnion’s use of “annualcreditmonitoringreport,” Danaher said: “That doesn’t have the words ‘free, annual’ in it.”
- I wasn’t going to have a Two Minutes Hate here, but David compels me with his “Nice Identity You Got There. Shame If Anything Happened to It,” at ThoughtCrimes.org. How could I resist?
(Use Bugmenot for the LA Times or Atlanta Journal Constitution.)