ChoicePoint’s chief executive apologized Tuesday to 145,000 customers exposed to identity theft but he had difficulty convincing some lawmakers the company was doing enough to resolve the problem.
Derek Smith’s testimony before a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel was the first congressional appearance by a ChoicePoint executive since the data broker based in Alpharetta, Ga., disclosed last month that an enormous security breach compromised private information of Americans across the country.
“Let me begin by offering an apology on behalf of our company and my own personal apology to those consumers whose information may have been accessed by the criminals whose fraudulent activity ChoicePoint failed to prevent,” Smith said.
Smith and LexisNexis CEO Kurt Sanford, whose company also had a recent breach involving information from 32,000 Americans, endorsed some proposals to toughen federal laws governing consumer privacy but resisted calls for a blanket prohibition on the sale of Social Security numbers.
For this complete story, please visit ChoicePoint Chief Apologizes to Congress.
