[Clips] Private Eyes Fear Limits On Information Access

Tue Jun 14 15:27:41 EDT 2005

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Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:52:02 -0400
To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
Subject: [Clips] Private Eyes Fear Limits On Information Access
Reply-To: rah at philodox.com
Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301553_pf.html>

The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com
Private Eyes Fear Limits On Information Access

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 14, 2005; D01

Private investigators are working to blunt legislation that cracks down on
the active marketplace for Social Security numbers, telling Congress that
restricting access to the numbers will hurt their business and hamper their
investigations.

Several bills are moving through the Capitol to prevent identity thieves
from getting Social Security numbers to gain access to consumers' financial
accounts. In the past year, the Social Security numbers of tens of millions
of Americans have been exposed through personal data being lost, stolen or
hacked.

But private investigators contend that the rush to protect privacy goes too
far and would damage their ability to deliver valuable services, such as
locating people who skip out on debts, commit fraud or want to avoid
testifying in court.

In a lobbying blitz, trade associations representing roughly 40,000
licensed private investigators are exhorting their members to "please do
something, or we will have nothing" by writing to Congress and state
legislatures, many of which also are moving to curb the availability of
Social Security numbers.

Representatives of private investigator groups discussed lobbying strategy
last month with several data brokers -- companies that buy and sell
personal information -- at a meeting hosted by ChoicePoint Inc., one of the
country's largest such firms.

According to a summary of the meeting circulated to online news groups
frequented by private investigators, "PIs and data provider companies are
committed to a massive lobbying effort to educate our legislators on the
ill effects of truncating data to licensed investigators."

But the investigators also are worried about large data brokers themselves,
which routinely buy and sell personal data but have taken their own steps
to restrict access to Social Security numbers in the wake of breaches at
their firms.

Two of the largest, ChoicePoint and LexisNexis Group, now sell only partial
Social Security numbers to several types of businesses, including private
investigators.

"We think they can do their jobs without" full Social Security numbers,
said James Lee, chief marketing officer of ChoicePoint. He confirmed most
of the account of the lobbying meeting.

Private investigators also have other ways of profiting from their access
to such information. Some have ongoing subscriptions for data from brokers
and maintain Web sites offering to resell the data to the public. Most of
the subscription contracts prohibit such resale, and many data brokers now
are requiring private investigators and other clients to recertify their
credentials.

Brian P. McGuinness, president of the Baltimore-based National Council of
Investigation and Security Services, said the large data brokers that
decided to limit private investigators to partial Social Security numbers
were being "a bit disingenuous," and were simply trying to stave off
stricter regulation by Congress.

Instead, he said, the policy will make it harder for private eyes to
distinguish between people who have the same or similar names.

McGuinness said his group is hoping for an exception to limits on Social
Security numbers similar to one investigators enjoy in a 1994 law that
restricts the sale of driver's license data.

"There are some problem children in every profession," McGuinness said,
referring to investigators who indiscriminately resell data. His
organization supports legislation that would prohibit reselling of Social
Security numbers to the general public online, he said.

Other information brokers are not truncating Social Security numbers for
private investigators.

"I think they are an extension of law enforcement," said Terry Kilburn,
chief operating officer of Tracers Information Specialists Inc. of Florida,
which also advertises data available to the public on its Web site.

He said that because his firm has amassed and combined data from a variety
of public and private sources over many years -- including mega-brokers
such as ChoicePoint -- he is rarely bound by their resale restrictions.

For their part, the large data brokers say they support identity-theft
legislation but are working quietly with banks and other financial services
companies -- also the source of several recent breaches -- to shape the
bills.

Most of the bills introduced would require that organizations notify
customers if their information is breached, similar to a California law
credited with forcing ChoicePoint and others to reveal their cases in
recent months.

The industry supports the position of the head of the Federal Trade
Commission, Deborah Platt Majoras, which is to limit the disclosure
requirement to instances in which the organization believes the breach
could result in identity theft.

Privacy groups argue that such an exemption is a loophole, because firms
might not always know if the breach could lead to theft and would have
little incentive to say so.

The industry also wants one federal law that would supersede a potential
patchwork of state laws. Consumer groups support that approach only if the
national bill is strong.

Other bills would provide incentives to the industry to encrypt data that
they keep in storage, making it more difficult to use the information if it
is lost or stolen.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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