Senators Warn of Crackdown on ChoicePoint and Other Data Brokers

Senators warned ChoicePoint and other data brokers Thursday that Congress may quickly enact tough new laws to protect consumers against identify theft.

Calling ChoicePoint’s recent loss of consumer data to thieves an “irresponsible violation,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said federal penalties should be enacted for companies careless enough to suffer such security breaches. Based in Alpharetta, Ga., ChoicePoint has revealed that the personal and financial records of 145,000 Americans were fraudulently obtained from its electronic files.

“The magnitude of these transactions has rendered the individuals behind the data faceless,” Leahy told a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on identity theft. “But at the end of the day, when things go south, it is the consumer that bears the brunt of the harm.”

In recent weeks, data collection firms across the nation have reported alarming losses of personal data of consumers. This week, the LexisNexis Group, a broker of legal and consumer data, announced that about 30,000 of its records ? including people’s names, addresses and Social Security numbers ? had been stolen from electronic files.

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