Crime Pays It Forward

The business of a big company called ChoicePoint is running background checks for lots of other big companies, so they have a huge database of records full of personal and sensitive information. In fact, the Los Angeles Times reports, the company claims it has “the largest private collection of court records, Social Security numbers and other public and personal data in the country.”

But some 150,000 of those records were “released to identity thieves.” Now if you think this would be a shameful lapse, especially embarrassing to a company in the security business, well---that just shows why you aren’t in the security business. Because it wasn't an embarrassment---it was a business opportunity!

People who were worried about what information of theirs these identity thieves got were told by ChoicePoint, sure, coming right up---for a price.

Yes, ChoicePoint chose to sell to victims the information it sold to the thieves. Only in the case of the victims, it was information about themselves they already knew. They just needed to know who else knows it. Talk about creating a new market.

ChoicePoint is not alone in this new "service" (Create the need, create the product: that's America). Consumer agencies also report that many such companies as well as credit agencies are using their vulnerability to data theft to sell consumers extra protection packages. Maybe it’s extra code, maybe it’s extortion, but it sure seems in character.