Consumer Reports has a detailed information page about companies that track and sell your personal information. The data comes in the form of consumer credit reports, insurance credit reports, your health history, your checking and banking account history, your criminal background, your history of retail returns, and your property rental history.

In most cases, you can pull free copies of these reports periodically, which is good because errors can pop up in these reports just like they can in a consumer credit history. But who has time to pull and monitor that many databases of personal information? The website PrivacyRights.org suggests you stick with yearly monitoring of your consumer credit report (the one you can get for free only at www.annualcreditreport.com), and pay attention to the other ones only under certain circumstances:

• New homeowner's or auto insurance: order your CLUE or A-PLUS reports
• Victim of check fraud or general checking or savings account problems: order your ChexSystems report
• Employer (current or potential) asks for permission to run background check: ask for name of the screening company and contact them as soon as they've issued the report
• Applying for a new job: order Employment Data Report from Work Number if any past employers used that company; also consider ordering a ChoicePoint Full File Disclosure
• Renting an apartment or home: ask the landlord for the name of the screening company, as there are several
• Health, life, long-term care, or disability insurance: order your MIB report from Medical Information Bureau
• General overall check-up on what you look like as data: order a ChoicePoint Full File Disclosure and a Lexus-Nexis Accurint Person Report

There is one time when you may want to go crazy and order everything, and that's if you've been a victim of identity theft.

(Thanks to commenter mac-phisto, whose advice in an earlier post on auto insurance triggered this one.)

"Big Brother is watching" [Consumer Reports]
"What You Should Know about 'Specialty' Reports" [Privacy Rights Clearinghouse]
(Photo: Erik Pitti)

What do you do in a situation like this? William tried to contact ChoicePoint (the agency that handles private data for drug testing, background searches, etc) but they had no record of the drug test - or even the request for a drug test - on file. Thinking it might be a Social Security Number mixup, ChoicePoint tried to get them in contact with Target HR, which gave him their own little run around.

So, I try to call Target today but their phone was constantly busy. When I got there, I heard one of the managers talking about how their phone system was down. I gave the lady at HR the number to call, but she looked into the computer and they couldn't find any record of me at all — that I never applied, never was interviewed, never had a drug test, nothing. The lady said she would ask around to find out where all the records on me went.

"Ask around"? This is a Fortune 500 company, not the local paper route. They put you through the hiring process, and told you when you'd be working. You put in time, effort, and money that could have been spent looking elsewhere, and they owe it to you to follow through. Go into target, speak with the General Manager (or, preferably the Manager who interviewed you) and demand an answer. We'll all be rooting for you, William!

(Photo: Baslercast)

According to the suit, Angie Duckworth's father let an acquaintance, Angie Jones, borrow a car in 2002. Ms. Duckworth reported the accident to State Farm, who erroneously reported her as being the driver. (Apparently they can't understand how two women could have the same first name but different last names).

After discovering the wrong information in 2004, the plaintiff asked State Farm to fix the info and they agreed to. In 2006, the wrong information was still on her report, which could harm her ability to get insurance in the future. At one point, contends the lawsuit. "Choicepoint told Plaintiff in order to dispute the wreck she would need to contact State Farm directly. Choicepoint falsely hid from Plaintiff that she should dispute directly in writing with Choicepoint."

Choicepoint is one of the largest consumer reporting agencies in America, and it seems to be beholden to none of the citizen's whose data it manages/mangles.

If you manage to find that Choicepoint has minsinformation in its records on you, you can lobby to have it fixed by writing them a letter.

ChoicePoint Insurance Consumer Center
P.O. Box 105108
Atlanta, Georgia 30348-5108
1-888-497-0011 (toll free); Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST
www.consumerdisclosure.com

Clashing With Choicepoint - One Consumer's Challenge [Alabama Consumer Law Blog]
(Photo: I Can Has Cheeseburger?)

Employment Report
ChoicePoint (866) 312-8075

Check Writing History Report
ChexSystems (800) 428-9623

Shared Check Authorization Network (800) 262-7771 Fax: (800) 358-4506
TeleCheck (800) 835-3243.

Residential and Tenant Reports
ChoicePoint: (877) 448-5732
Safe Rent (888) 333-2413
UD Registry (818) 785-3905

Medical History Reports
MIB (866) 692-6901

Insurance Claims Reports
ISO A-Plus Report (800) 627-3487

Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you're entitled to one of each report below per year for free. — BEN POPKEN

The "Other" Consumer Reports [Privacy Rights Clearinghouse]
(Photo: Getty)

That's what Jim Deck found when his renter's insurance nearly doubled. His CLUE, or comprehensive loss underwriting exchange, report, said that he had been in an accident. This report was shared with the insurance company handling his renter's insurance. It turned out though he was never in this accident, his mother was, and because they had lived at the same address, ChoicePoint decided to attribute it to Jim as well.

You can get a copy of your CLUE and check it for errors here, or by calling 1-866-312-8076. Federal law says you get one free one every year. — BEN POPKEN

Little-Known Report Impacts Insurance Rates [WSMV] (Thanks to Bob!)

Here are some links germane to our mention.

Poll showing Choicepoint voted 2nd worst company in America.
View our Worst Company in America saga.
Previous Consumerist posts about Choicepoint.

Learn more about this blog and how to use it, here.

Thanks for visiting! — BEN POPKEN

This is THE LAST ROUND before we crown the grand champion.

Don't like the way the results are going? Get some friends in on the action.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Previously: Worst Company in America: Tier 3 Results

Winners announced this Friday.

Every vote counts. Voting remains open until Sunday. This is the second to last tier. The winner of this match and the one below go head to head, starting Monday, in the battle to be the Worst Company in America.

Like Highlander, there can be only one.

Remember them? They're battling the US Government to reach the finals in the Worst Company in America poll.

Check it out, after the jump.

At stake is Congress' consideration of HR 3997, which Ed Mierzwinski of US PIRG calls the "worst bill ever." According to his blog entry, sent in to us by Chris of Epic.org, Ed claims the bill would:

• "Fail to even lightly regulate the activities of data brokers like ChoicePoint, the unregulated company that sold 163,000 dossiers to identity thieves (other than to subject them to the same weak data security rules that shoe stores would be subject to under HR 3997)."
• "Establish a trigger for data breach notification that experts believe would result in no notices to consumers, because the standard is too high. We only know about the 100 breaches that have occurred since Choicepoint because of the strong California trigger."
• "Expressly disallow state Attorneys General from protecting their citizens from privacy invasions."

Read and decide for thyself, oh consumer. Also read this letter signed by 10 groups, some of the consumer advocacy groups (we can tell because the word consumer is in their name) opposing the bill.

The House Financial Services Committee is slated to begin voting on HR 3997 beginning today.

Allegations about ChoicePoint here.

Who is Choice Point? Allegedly, a front for Data Mining for over 25 federal agencies. More here.

Previously

• Round 10: Sprint vs. Walmart
  
• Round 9: Halliburton vs. H&R Block.
  
• Worst Company in America: Tier 1 Results

Despite our best efforts to cast Target as an evil interloper, Walmart took the gold. Sprint barely beat Verizon by 18 votes, despite Verizon having such vaunted customer service. And in a surprise upset, the US government, despite not "officially" being a corporation, beat Enron by 169 votes! You go, girl!

We understand Tier 2 will be filled with trouncing. This is our first ladder we've ever made, sorry. While you were betting on basketball, we were touching ourselves.

Having eliminated all the lesser of two evils, Friday's shakedown for Tier 3, will be hot.

We're talking Paris Hilton hot.

In other news, NPR's Marketplace says they're going to interview us this afternoon about this poll. This will be a great way to reach all those execs and vp's who can't read the New York Times. We wonder if we're allowed to bring in our own sound effects.

"According to consumer affairs, ChoicePoint operates as a front for Data Mining for over 25 federal agencies." - mrscolex. His argument against ChoicePoint continues after the jump.

Sallie Mae: "The have a convenient history of "loosing" paperwork on in school deferments so they can double collect on fees from student loans." - Eusie.

Wikipedia entry for Sallie Mae.

Previously:

• Round 5: Jet Blue vs. Southwest
  
• Round 4: Target vs Walmart
  
• Round 3: Sprint vs. Verizon
  
• Round 2: H&R Block vs. US Postal Service
  
• Round 1: Halliburton vs. Monsanto
  
• Round 0: Competition Ladder

ChoicePoint. Check out their website at www.choicepoint.com

Looks all happy and friendly doesn't it? Smiling kids having fun. Thats exactly the image I think of when I imagine a massive database on every citizen of the united states.

ChoicePoint is one of the few companies that the government contracts for information on its terrorist databases among other things.

Where to start on a company like this? We'll start with an easy source, Google News

ChoicePoint leaked the records of 145,000-163,000 people back in October of 2004. The citizens who had their records leak didn't find out about it until Feb of 2005, and even then initially only the people who were residents of the state of California were notified per state law. (Everybody was eventually notified to the best of my knowledge)

In 2002 ChoicePoint willingly gave (choicepoint claims they were duped) records of more than 1500 individuals to a Nigerian businessman in california. I quote from the atlanta journal constitution: For at least two years beginning in 2002, Oluwatosin used cellphones, fake addresses and anonymous mail-drop boxes in the Los Angeles area to masquerade as a business owner and trick ChoicePoint into selling him access to addresses, real estate records, bank data and other details of consumers that ultimately led to millions of dollars in credit card fraud.

The funny thing is that most people don't even know that their records are kept on this Georgia based company's data system.

Recently, the FTC levied a 10 million dollar fine against choicepoint, and choicepoint agreed to set up a 5 million dollar trust for victims who may have lost money as the result of ID leaks from their systems. Fortunately, if you do the math on total possible number of people who have had their data stolen, you get a whopping 30 bucks per person. Thanks choicepoint!

At one point the TSA almost agreed to use the databases that ChoicePoint holds to do their security checks for flights, but the plan was scrapped after outrage that the government was trying to circumvent privacy laws.

But in June of 2005, that didn't stop the CIA from granting a contract up to 20 million dollars to ChoicePoint for batch processing of public records.

According to consumer affairs, ChoicePoint operates as a front for Data Mining for over 25 federal agencies.

So go take one last look at their happy website with the children dancing. Makes you sick doesn't it?