Attorney General Jon Bruning

News Release

                        FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                   Contact: Holley Hatt

                        June 1, 2007 4:00pm CDT                                                       402.471.2067

ChoicePoint Adopts Safeguards to

Protect Consumer Information

(Lincoln, NE) Attorney General Jon Bruning today announced a settlement with Georgia-based ChoicePoint, Inc., the nation’s largest data broker. The settlement resolves allegations that the company failed to adequately maintain the privacy and security of consumers’ personal information, including 572 Nebraskans.  

“Through no fault of their own, Nebraskans’ identities were compromised,” Bruning said. “This settlement sends an important message to companies – if you collect personal information on consumers, you have a responsibility to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.”

ChoicePoint provides identification and credential verification services to businesses, government and nonprofit organizations. In February 2005, ChoicePoint announced that individuals posing as legitimate businesses gained access to consumers’ personal information. Bruning, along with 37 other attorneys general, wrote ChoicePoint, demanding the company notify the 145,000 consumers nationwide whose information may have been accessed.

As part of the settlement with 43 states and Washington, D.C., ChoicePoint will make significant, ongoing changes in the way that the company credentials new customers who have access to consumer information. It will be the first data broker to apply the same safeguards it uses to protect financial information to protecting consumers’ personal information. ChoicePoint will pay $500,000 to the states. Nebraska will receive $5,500 for attorneys’ fees. 

In a January 2006 settlement with ChoicePoint, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) required that ChoicePoint improve its process for accepting clients that obtain information from credit reports. The state settlement goes farther by requiring the company to improve its credentialing process for clients that obtain Social Security numbers and other forms of personally sensitive information. ChoicePoint also paid $5 million into a fund for consumer redress in the FTC settlement.

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