Steal Your Face

Time to check you credit reports. ChoicePoint, a consumer information reporting company, now says it gave out personal information on at least 145,000 people to fraudulent requestors.

The company disclosed an additional 110,000 people across the country could have had their personal information compromised, bringing the total number of possible victims to 145,000. The new tally likely makes ChoicePoint's break-in the largest case of identity theft in history.

"ChoicePoint is actively engaged with local and federal law enforcement agencies in the continuing investigation of a fraud committed against us," the company said in a statement, "through which a small number of very well organized criminals posed as legitimate companies to gain access to personal information about consumers."

[snip]

So far, approximately 750 instances of identity theft relating to the compromised information have been found in California alone.

ChoicePoint says it has acted to prevent the problem again in the future. "We are continually updating our processes and procedures to ensure the integrity of our systems and the information they contain," the company said.

That's nice.

Kevin Drum takes the opportunity to rail against the current system of credit reporting:

The problem with credit reports is that they're strictly under the control of one side of the credit transaction: businesses. If a business requests a report, they get it, no questions asked. If a business reports a problem, it goes on the report, no questions asked. The consumer never knows any of this is happening, and that's the way the credit reporting companies like it.

This needs to stop. If a business requests a report, the consumer should be notified — by email, phone, or in writing — and the report should go out only if the consumer authorizes it. If a nonroutine entry is added to a credit report, the consumer should be notified so that she can object immediately if she thinks a mistake has been made. Consumers should be full partners in the creation of credit reports, and any changes or uses of credit reports should be fully transparent to the consumer involved.

These aren't just pieces of paper anymore. Credit reports are minutely detailed resumes of your entire life, and credit reporting companies shouldn't be allowed to arrogantly treat your life as if it's their sole property. After all, an improper use of your credit report can do you tremendous damage. It should fundamentally be considered joint property, as much yours as the credit reporting company's.

I have to agree with Kev on this one. Several years a go, I took the time to contact all three of the big credit reporting companies to get copies of my credit reports. Fortunately there was nothing erroneous on them as far as I could tell. At that time, they gave me the option of being notified whenever someone requested a copy of my report. I took them up on it. It sounded like a good idea. Well, I've never heard a thing despite have received credit (and I assume that required a credit check). So, lets just make it mandatory for everyone, every time.