Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

Choicepoint, while we're correcting errors

A few weeks back, I corrected an error in a post about Choicepoint. Choicepoint also corrected an error, see “Job seeker loses opportunity after inaccurate background check” for details:

“Well, first they said, ‘Something was wrong with your background check,'” she said. “I said, ‘What is wrong with it? What is wrong with my background check?'”

ChoicePoint found out that Smith was convicted of identity theft 10 years ago and sentenced to three years’ probation.

The problem? It wasn’t the correct Smith.

Oh, the irony.

3 comments on "Choicepoint, while we're correcting errors"

  • Chris says:

    Gee, it sure is a good thing checks like this aren’t used to determine eligibility to vote, or anything.

  • Adam says:

    Oh come oh, Chris! We learned that lesson in Florida in 2000. What politician would be dumb enough to hand their voter lists to Choicepoint today?

  • Alex says:

    A few years ago I had an open account with read access to ChoicePoint’s network. A simple XML query over an SSL link (with a client cert) and I could pull up any of their records, we had a 100+ pages manual detailing the query syntax. The prototype took less then 3 days to implement and test.

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