Sadly, merlindata.com, one of the most respected database companies by private investigators, has experienced a theft of personal information, by a customer posing as an investment advisor. Information on almost 9,000 people, 2,700 of whom are Californians was stolen before the theft was identified. The FBI is apparently on the trail of the suspect.

Data thefts, breaches and hacking are becoming routine due to the universal reliance on computer storage and transfer of data. But, unlike ChoicePoint, which kept multiple personal information thefts under wraps, Merlin Information Services has come clean and extended a generous, unique offer, even though there are no identified victims. I gather that the same rouge “businesses” are making the rounds at the various database companies but ChoicePoint hasn’t shared its list of known violators, which, undoubtedly, could have prevented this current theft.

“We, of course, immediately apologized,” Dores said, and the company fired off a letter this week to those whose personal records were shared. The company also offered those affected a year’s worth of credit monitoring at no cost, and bought a $50,000 identity theft insurance policy for each of the 8,998 people.”And we set up a hotline they can call if anything suspicious turns up,” she said. Read the article and another one here

Find the repository for U.S. City Directories, those great genealogical tools that are more than a phonebook, more than a reverse directory.

Anita Ramasastry writes on the clash of the First Amendment and the need for restricting personal identifiers on the Internet. Ramasastry, an Associate Professor of Law, reflects on the legalities and the dangers of too much freely distributed information, particularly social security numbers, in online sources. She rightly singles out zabasearch, a somewhat scrambled, voyeristic compilation of names, addresses and telephone numbers in one, searchable source.

In short, Ramasastry suggests a few legal avenues.

First, a law could deem certain categories of information off limits. Medical data is already protected, to some extent. Social security numbers should be better protected (for example, from Internet publication).

Second, a law could prevent certain federal, state, and local government data from being accessible online. (Bankruptcy and divorce records come to mind; they could be redacted).

Perhaps private investigators should get out in front of this one and publicly oppose the crass, devil-may-care approach to people’s privacy and security exhibited by zabasearch.

The findlaw message board is taking comments. A few are already posted.

public records

A few months ago I reported on that bad piece of legislation proposed in Louisiana that would turn private investigators into stalkers. HB 51 changes the crime of stalking to”intentional”, repeated following of someone. It was passed by the House Commerce Committee with an exemption for Louisiana licensed private investigators, which was not in the original bill. The persistent folks in the Louisiana Private Investigators Association (LPIA) saw this one all the way through. Send them a love letter. Or, better yet, join and contribute funds, because the challenges to our work are not diminishing.

In disapointing news, the Missouri legislature fails, for yet another session, to mandate licensing for private investigators, Ron Rugen reports.

state legislation
private investigator news

My subject’s post office box!

Michigan police departments are shedding responsibility for supplying traffic accident reports by contracting with a private company, which can provide these online. The TRACView service will double the fee charged to obtain a report but the public can still get them at the police department, according to this article.

The Republic of Texas is a sniff away from enacting, HB 3278, a measure that will limit personal information available in county records.

It would allow you to have personal information redacted or removed from public documents and would require county clerks to remove personal information from documents turned over to the public and remove public documents from online access.
The problem is that sanitizing all county records and putting them back online, would be too expensive. In Fort Bend County alone, there are some 20 million such records, going back to 1838.

Yah, and health care, quality education and safe neighborhoods cost money too. But it’s not really about the cost, it’s about the money. Oil, that is. Political oil. Votes. The current tally is in favor of secrecy in the name of protection from identify theft. But once the transparency of government is clouded, there’s no getting it back. And what will be redacted from these documents? Birth dates on birth certificates? Names on deeds?

This could just be a fabricated, immigrant bashing story but it raises some curious possibilities for corruption of public records. A Denver television station report, Undocumented Immigrants Buying Homes With Fake IDs: Government-Backed Loans Going To Those With Phony Social Security No., claims that some undocumented alien residents are securing fabricated identification for all kinds of nefarious purposes. One of the possibilities, after obtaining a false social security number, then crafting a driver license and a W2, is to purchase real property. Now the public record reflects the name of a property owner who doesn’t exist.

Florida Compliance Stop Work Order Database is searchable by employer for Worker Compensation violations.

Under the new law, the most violent sex offenders are to be listed in the online database for life. For lesser offenses, depending on the severity, an offender would have to wait from 10 to 40 years for removal from the list. Read the article

If everyone can pinpoint the local sex offender registrants, raise a fuss and push them out of a residence in their neighborhood, where do they go? At least if the offender is at a known location the police might be able to better track them, rather than risk loosing contact because of homelessness. In California alone, law enforcement has no current address information for 44 percent of the registered offenders. Read more

sex offenders

View the video of today’s Hearing on Identity Theft/Data Broker Services.

Full Committee Hearing
Tuesday, May 10 2005

Witnesses are listed below.
Panel 1:
Mr. Kurt Sanford President & CEO, U.S. Corporate and Federal Government Markets, LexisNexis

Mr. Douglas C. Curling President and Chief Operating Officer, ChoicePoint, Inc.

Panel 2:
Ms. Jennifer Barrett Chief Privacy Officer, Acxiom Corporation

Mr. Paul Kurtz Executive Director, Cyber Security Industry Alliance

Mr. Marc Rotenberg President and Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center

Ms. Mari Frank , Mari Frank, Esq. & Associates

identity theft
government