Choicepoint Roundup, March 9
- Tara Wheatland has a long post Un-Spinning the ChoicePoint Scandal. (Via Personal Democracy Forum.)
- Local TV station WXIA Atlanta says ChoicePoint Management Under Fire
- Not actually Choicepoint, but DSW Shoes and Seisint, makers of the massively overhyped MATRIX database for law enforcement have both announced breaches. I wonder when the attackers are going to start inserting information, rather than taking it?
- Speaking of other breaches, PIPEDA and Canadian Privacy Law (the blog) has a great roundup of incidents since Jan 2004. He lists 39 incidents, including hacking, lost laptops, failure to shred paper, bad faxes, bad email, and others. I’ll try to comment on these soon.
- Bob Sullivan has a three page article at MSNBC, “ChoicePoint files found riddled with errors.”
It’s not clear prospective employers would see that part of Pierce’s file as part of an employment background check. The firm declined to answer specific questions about Pierce’s report — or to confirm its authenticity — but said it was likely designed for law enforcement officials.
That these files are full of errors is unsurprising. Choicepoint has no motive to produce correct information, and correcting the information costs money. Also, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to have a national debate on Choicepoint’s functions if they won’t even tell us what’s in which report.
My ongoing Choicepoint coverage is all listed here.
Anyone out there who is a current ChoicePoint employee, please
contact me offline at hweber@ap.org.
| Harry Weber-The Associated Press