Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

Choicepoint, April 3-7

• Diebold, Choicepoint Partner to Offer Innovative Voting Technology was an April Fools item I forgot to blog:
  

  Alpharetta, GA – Diebold Election Systems and Choicepoint, Inc., today announced a joint venture that could revolutionize the voting market. The concept is simple: combine Diebold’s demonstrated expertise in voting systems with Choicepoint’s superior data-mining techniques to produce PredictaVote(TM) – the first 100 percent voter-free, predictive voting system.

• The Orlando Sentinel discusses Florida’s proposed disclosure law:
  

  “Virtually every state is now actively pursuing some type of legislation,” said Judith Collins, director of the Identity Theft Crime & Research Lab at Michigan State University. “When something like this happens to Bank of America, people realize no business is immune.”

  …
  “Our concern is that you might have two sets of standards which are inconsistent,” said Tom Cardwell, an Orlando lawyer and counsel for the Florida Bankers Association.

  “Consistency” here means “the weaker Federal standard,” where the organization that’s been breached, decides.

• The Coloradoan reports that Choicepoint is looking to contract for a call center, and includes the picture here. It makes me all warm and fuzzy to know that those call center employees probably use a password, and are, ummm, background checked before they can get a job. And no one could ever walk up to the wrong terminal, or see their terminal getting the wrong data and scripts. (photo V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan; article via Call Center Digest.)
• The Atlanta Journal Constituion reports that Carol DiBattiste, Choicepoints new Chief Credentialing, Compliance and Privacy Officer, will be getting nearly a million dollars for her first year of work; $9,500 a week, a 350k bonus for 2005, and 100k if she stays through May, 2006. I see no reason to change my previous analysis.
• The Kansas City Star has an interesting story (Use Bugmenot for a login.) about consumer advocates calling for State Farm to use Choicepoint’s data to find current owners of vehicles whose wrecking wasn’t properly disclosed:
  

  The groups accuse State Farm of foot-dragging to avoid bad publicity and to prevent lawyers from learning the names of victims and filing big suits. Consumer groups point out that any insurance company can purchase the names of vehicle owners from ChoicePoint, a data collection company with billions of records.

  A ChoicePoint spokeswoman says the company had no comment because the State Farm situation was “too sensitive.”

  It seems Choicepoint is feeling burnt because they don’t understand why the whole thing blew up in their face. This is a perfect opportunity to explain the benefits of their database.

  The settlement calls for State Farm to use ChoicePoint to identify the motorists.

  …
  As for ChoicePoint, [Iowa consumer protection division lead William L.] Brauch said the data company’s information is not as accurate as vehicle information the states keep. He said the states plan to use ChoicePoint “as a final check. But that is not the only way to locate these vehicles.”

• Finally, in today’s Two Minutes Sardonic, Herestormwiththeweather offers “Cheers to Olatunji Oluwatosin,”
  

  Because of Oluwatosin’s efforts coupled with California law that requires disclosure of compromises of user information, Choicepoint is finally receiving the scrutiny that they deserve.

My choicepoint category archive includes extensive coverage of the most recent Choicepoint ID theft issue.

Originally published by adam on 7 Apr 2005
Last modified on 7 Apr 2005
Categories:   Choicepoint   Uncategorized