[Dataloss] Big NYT article on many things Choicepoint

[Richard Forno]

November 12, 2006
Keeping Your Enemies Close
By GARY RIVLIN

IF you found yourself running a company suddenly branded one of the most
reviled in the country ‹ if, for example, you noticed that visitors to
Consumerist.com, a heavily visited consumer Web site, voted yours as the
second ³worst company in America² and you had just been awarded the 2005
³Lifetime Menace Award² by the human rights group Privacy International ‹
you might feel obliged to take extraordinary steps. You might even want to
reach out to your most vocal critics and ask them, ³What are we doing
wrong?²

So it was in early 2005 that Douglas C. Curling, the president of
ChoicePoint, a giant data broker that maintains digital dossiers on nearly
every adult in the United States, courted two critics whom he had accused
just months earlier of starting ³yet another inaccurate, misdirected and
misleading attack² on his company.

Mr. Curling also contacted others who had spent years calling for laws
requiring better safeguarding of personal information that ChoicePoint and
other data brokers assemble ‹ records such as Social Security numbers, birth
dates, driver¹s license numbers, license plate numbers, spouse names, maiden
names, addresses, criminal records, civil judgments and the purchase price
of every parcel of property a person has ever owned.

³It was sort of like when I talk with my wife when she¹s not happy with me,²
Mr. Curling said of his dealings with some of ChoicePoint¹s harshest
critics. ³It¹s not exactly a dialogue I look forward to, but I can¹t deny
it¹s important.² He also could not deny his motivations for engaging in
these conversations: in the public¹s mind, ChoicePoint had come to symbolize
the cavalier manner in which corporations handled confidential data about
consumers.

In January, the Federal Trade Commission hit ChoicePoint with a $10 million
fine, the largest civil penalty in the agency¹s history, for security and
record-handling procedures that violated the rights of consumers. Under the
settlement, it also required ChoicePoint to set aside an additional $5
million to help those suffering financial harm because of its failure to
provide adequate safeguards against data breaches.

< BIG SNIP >

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/business/yourmoney/12choice.html