- I was a bit surprised to learn last month that I have
an FBI file. You have one, too.
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- The FBI spent $8 million last year with a company called
ChoicePoint Inc. to buy dossiers on almost all adults who live in the United
States. ChoicePoint, formerly a part of credit-reporting giant Equifax,
is a publicly-held database firm with a market value of $2.25 billion,
based in Alpharetta, Ga.
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- Using our Social Security numbers as a key personal identifier,
ChoicePoint compiles dossiers on citizens from credit reports, and from
public records such as court files, property tax documents, business incorporations,
and professional license applications. ChoicePoint bundles the information
and resells it to business and government clients. The FBI is apparently
such a good customer that they get their own website to access the database.
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- The Wall Street Journal reported on the FBI's use of
this database on April 13. After reading the article, I e-mailed ChoicePoint
CEO Derek Smith asking to see the dossiers on my family. A couple weeks
later, after paying $20 apiece for the privilege, I received by mail a
packet of more than 60 pages of computer print-outs from ChoicePoint containing
information about myself and my wife.
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- Sixty pages seemed like a lot of information for one
family. Looking through the first few pages of my dossier I saw that my
credit card companies gave ChoicePoint my current address, plus my previous
two addresses. My town gave them information about my house: when I bought
it, how much I paid for it, and my property taxes. They even had the square
footage for the house, which I've been curious to know ever since we moved
in. Since my wife and I have the same phone number in the White Pages,
ChoicePoint correctly deduced that she and I are related.
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- The deeper I dove into my dossier, however, the weirder
things got. A lot of misleading information is included, perhaps because
my name is a common one. ChoicePoint noted, for example, that I might have
been previously married to some lady named Mary, but that I had died in
1976. Yikes! They did a search of Texas criminal records and found nothing
under my name. However, the report suggested a further search under names
such as "Ricky Smith" and "Rickie Smith" because there
were some bad guys in jail under these names. ChoicePoint touted me as
a real estate agent in my town. They also thought I might be involved in
more than 30 small businesses around the country simply because the name
"Richard Smith" appears as a company officer.
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- On my wife's dossier I learned with amazement that she
had a son named "Kyle" three years before we met. It was unclear
from the report how ChoicePoint made this connection and where Kyle is
today. Pretty funny how they missed our two real daughters. They did list
one of my daughters as a neighbor, but she actually hasn't lived at home
for the last eight years since she went away to college.
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- Memo to the FBI: The ChoicePoint dossier for my household
contains more misinformation than correct information. I'm not sure how
someone looking over these reports could use them in any meaningful way
without already knowing a good deal about myself and my wife.
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- After seeing these reports, I wanted to opt-out. Guess
what? Just as with credit reporting agencies, you can't. They choose to
have a relationship with you, but you have no choice in your relationship
with them. In my original e-mail message to the ChoicePoint CEO, I asked
about opting out. I got a nice letter back from the ChoicePoint chief privacy
officer saying "No." Here was the reason given:
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- "Our individual reference products are used by legitimate
businesses and government agencies to identify and locate individuals to
make society a safer place, including detecting and preventing fraud, locating
and apprehending fugitives, and finding missing children and reuniting
them with their families. Given these uses and the adverse effect opt-out
would have on our ability to provide quality information for these decisions
that matter, I am unable to remove your information from these products."
Hmmm. My next level of concern is about how the misinformation in these
files could be used against me. Besides providing information to the FBI,
ChoicePoint helps companies conduct employee background checks, fraud investigations,
and review insurance applications. I don't want to be hassled simply because
a stranger who is listed on my dossier does something wrong. I'm also wondering
whether information about me is mistakenly on the dossiers of people with
a similar name.
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- Using mistaken information can have ugly consequences.
This happened last year when ChoicePoint provided criminal history information
to the state of Florida. In a lawsuit filed in January, the NAACP alleges
that thousands of legal voters were mistakenly taken off the rolls in Florida
prior to November's disputed presidential election. ChoicePoint claims
that Florida county election officials failed to properly correlate ChoicePoint
information with voter eligibility.
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- Given ChoicePoint's stated desire to deliver quality
information to businesses and government agencies, I've sent them marked
up copies of the dossiers on my family so that they can correct their databases.
If you want to see your own FBI/ChoicePoint dossier, you can order it for
$20 through the CDB InfoTek (now owned by ChoicePoint) website linked below.
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- Comment
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- From Purple Crow
5-12-1
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- Jeff,
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- There was a time not that long ago here in Canada where
our OWN gov't was caught extorting private citizens' personal files against
their will and then SELLING them to EQUIFAX (US) for $$$, and reasons unknown.
Very suspicious indeed. A local activist group called "MWAL"
(Marginalized Workers Action League) did most of the legwork in the court
cases. Supreme court is next this summer. WOW!! Means that Canada is
NO different than the US secret agencies.
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