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By Michael G. Williams
From the way the business appears, it seems as though online data brokers are content to have private citizens at their mercy. They collect massive amounts of personal information from public records, gather the information into a master file, and secretly sell these “digital portraits” to anyone who has the money.
While they say that these services help confirm the identity of your blind date or track down deadbeat dads, the negative consequences of publicly available social security numbers, financial records, and criminal reports that are often completely inaccurate are plenty.
Personal information leaks
Over the last decade, the newswires have buzzed with stories of identity theft, ruined reputations, stalking, and murder, all linked to the purchase or leak of personal information through data brokers. Nevertheless, companies like Intelius.com and Docusearch.com soldier on with their missions to provide this information in the interest of public safety.
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“The industry has made the argument that the information is in the public domain and that they don’t do anything illegal to get it,” says Danielle Citron, assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. “They also argue that they’re providing a public good.”
Indeed, that’s what Intelius told the Tribune in a recent interview (see “Your private life on sale online” in the February 2008 issue). Intelius Corporate Communications Manager Liz Murray described their services, the most prominent of which are their $49.95 background checks, as “reliable.” “It’s something that you can come back to again and again, and it has an actual application in their life as a consumer product,” she says.
But how useful is a report that returns a total of six criminal charges against a different person with the same name? That’s what the Tribune found in a background check purchased from Intelius: handgun possession; marijuana possession; two counts of trespassing; and two unidentified charges.
“[Companies] believe it’s a better product if it includes a wider net of negative information, even if it doesn’t relate to the specific consumer in question,” says Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). “That’s wrong, and there needs to be greater scrutiny placed on these firms.”
Limited legal protection
Some laws do exist but with very limited application to data brokers. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), for instance, regulates the collection and use of financial information for institutions that qualify as consumer reporting agencies, which are entities that amass and sell individuals’ credit and financial information.
As Mierzwinski explains it, though, many data brokers will craft products that either are similar to credit reports or contain related information such as court judgments on liens and bankruptcies, but will place certain caveats on the uses of the information that they provide, avoiding the scope of the FCRA.
Intelius, for instance, states on its “Terms and Conditions” page that it is not a consumer reporting agency as defined in the FCRA and that the information provided in its reports should not be used to: establish an individual’s eligibility for personal credit or insurance, or evaluate an individual for employment or promotion, including employment of babysitters, cleaning personnel, nannies, contractors, etc.
But Intelius offers “instant employment screening[s]” and credit checks. Moreover, during her interview with the Tribune, Murray inadvertently demonstrated inconsistencies with this policy, at one point alluding to the use of Intelius’ services to screen babysitters.
Promising bills before Congress
There are a few bills before Congress, however, that do show some promise. Currently before the Senate, the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2007 (S. 495) would require data brokers to disclose to a requesting individual all of the records they have pertaining to him or her for sale to third parties.
The law would also require data brokers to correct proven inaccuracies in one’s personal information. In the House, the Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 3046) would bar the sale, purchase, and display of social security numbers in the private and public sectors.
According to Mierzwinski, data broker industry members like LexisNexis are desperately trying to kill this bill or seek exceptions to it that would allow them to continue to use social security numbers. LexisNexis did not respond to the Tribune’s requests for an interview about the company’s opposition to the proposed law.
There are also numerous public interest organizations actively engaged in protecting consumers and educating the public on the dangers inherent in the sale of sensitive personal information. The Electronic Privacy Information Center ( www.epic.org ), The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org ), and U.S. PIRG ( www.uspirg.org) have all proven to be valuable resources for consumers, the press, and federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.
“The 64-million-dollar question is what’s the information collected being used for,” Mierzwinski says. “It’s being used to deny Americans opportunities for jobs, and it’s being used to confuse and distort people’s good names to public agencies for security or employment purposes.”
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