Public Outrage Hits Firm Selling Personal Data
In one of the most intense public outcries against invasions of privacy in the digital age, thousands of callers have jammed phone lines at the Ohio headquarters of Lexis-Nexis this week demanding to be removed from a personal information database offered commercially by the firm.
The onslaught of calls, provoked by a rapidly spreading--and apparently partially inaccurate--e-mail message received by thousands of Internet users, caused customer service lines at the company’s Dayton offices to overload throughout most of Wednesday’s work hours. For a time company employees were even unable to make outgoing calls.
Lexis-Nexis spokesmen said in a statement that the information in question is “readily available from public information sources such as telephone directories . . . and public records maintained by government agencies.”
But privacy advocates say the panic reflects a growing awareness among Americans of how easily their privacy can be compromised in an increasingly electronic world.
The reaction may have been particularly vehement, some say, because Lexis-Nexis is better known than such other information brokers as credit agencies.
“The amount of information that’s openly bought and sold in the information marketplace is just starting to dawn in the public consciousness,” said Beth Givens, project director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego.
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“It’s the ability to find a needle in the haystack,” she said. “And it’s also the ability to compile information from a number of different sources into an electronic dossier that could have errors or gaps that lead to misinterpretation.”
The focus of the complaints is Lexis-Nexis’ P-Trak database, which allows users to obtain a wide range of personal information about individuals they list by name.
The service is aimed at law-enforcement officials and lawyers trying to track down witnesses, debtors, heirs and beneficiaries. But it is available to virtually anyone willing to pay a search fee of $85 to $100 per name.
The available data include a subject’s current and former addresses, birth date, and even maiden name. The database service, which covers virtually every American adult, has been operating since June.
This week’s furor was apparently sparked by a series of anonymous e-mail messages warning recipients that P-Trak would allow strangers to obtain any individual’s Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, credit histories and other information that could be used to help commit credit card fraud. Such data are often used by credit card companies to verify applicants’ identities.
The messages spread with a speed and breadth attainable only over the ether. According to Lexis-Nexis officials, however, much of the accusations were wrong. P-Trak, they said, would not allow searchers to find strangers’ Social Security numbers, mothers’ maiden names, credit or medical histories, or personal financial data.
Nevertheless, a Lexis-Nexis spokesman said the service did initially allow clients to obtain Social Security numbers for individuals using only their names. That feature was dropped in June after an earlier spate of complaints. But Lexis-Nexis in a statement Wednesday noted that Social Security numbers are “available on the Internet from a number of sources.”
Beyond that, the company contends that the available information is innocuous.
“Is your maiden name a secret?” asked Steve Emmert, Lexis’ corporate counsel. “Most women live using their maiden names for 20, 25 years. That’s not a secret. It’s available everywhere. Month and year of birth? Street address?”
Lexis-Nexis obtains its raw information on a license from Trans Union, one of the three major national credit agencies, according to published reports.
Lexis-Nexis said it would accede to individuals’ requests to strike their names from the P-Trak database on written request. The deletions, however, will not take place for at least 60 days, when the database is automatically updated.
And several individuals who demanded that their names be removed said they simply didn’t want any information about themselves so easily accessible to a world audience.
Many Internet users have long been concerned about the implications of the digital dissemination of data. But advocates say the broader public is just now beginning to realize the impact of the technology on their private lives.
“It’s private information that I don’t want released without any opportunity to consent,” said Robert Giblin, a librarian at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton. “As a private citizen I should have the choice of opting out of it.”
Givens says only in the last two months has her agency begun to receive calls from people concerned about privacy rights on the Internet. The capability of the new medium has engendered services that allow users to find a quarry’s home address, complete with a map of his or her neighborhood and a bulls-eye over the individual’s home.
