WASHINGTON ? The ChoicePoint scandal, in which personal data on millions of people was stolen by criminals, has spurred a U.S. Senate Committee to hold hearings on shutting down identity theft.
Leading Democrats, including Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York, have called for a Judiciary Committee inquiry into whether companies like ChoicePoint, which buy and sell personal data, should be further regulated.
“I got a letter from Senator Leahy yesterday on identity theft issue and I immediately said we can hold a hearing,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told the Associated Press. Specter did not give a schedule for the hearings.
Formed in 1997 as a spinoff of credit reporting agency Equifax Inc., ChoicePoint has 19 billion public records in its database at its suburban Atlanta headquarters, including motor vehicle registrations, license and deed transfers, military records, names, addresses and Social Security numbers.
It revealed last week that thieves apparently used previously stolen identities to open ChoicePoint accounts and received volumes of data on consumers, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and credit reports.
Choicepoint says 144,778 people may have had their personal information stolen, while California authorities estimate up to 500,000. The ring operated for more than a year before it was detected and used the information to defraud at least 750 people, investigators said.
Feinstein says the ChoicePoint thefts prove that there needs to be federal regulation of information brokers, and that Americans need to have more control over their personal data. She has introduced a bill that would expand nationwide a California consumer protection law that requires companies to tell people if there is a breach in their data systems. She also wants information brokers to be forced to ask permission from people to sell their most sensitive personal information.
Schumer, too, plans legislation that would create federal rules setting conditions under which companies can provide or sell access to private information.
