the voter file in the context of the 2000 election controversy see florida central voter file 2000 florida election controversy . choicepoint corporation industry business services founded august 7 1997 ; 19 years ago 1997 08 07 headquarters alpharetta georgia u.s. key people james peck ceo products identification and credential verification services revenue us 982 million 2007 1 number of employees 5 000 2008 1 website www.choicepoint.com choicepoint previous nyse ticker symbol cps was a data aggregation company based in alpharetta near atlanta georgia united states that acted as a private intelligence service to government and industry . 2 choicepoint was a spinoff of equifax s insurance services group and it was purchased in february 2008 by reed elsevier parent corporation of lexisnexis in a cash deal for 4.1 billion usd . the company was rebranded as lexisnexis risk solutions . 3 4 choicepoint combined personal data sourced from multiple public and private databases for sale to the government and the private sector . the firm maintained more than 17 billion records of individuals and businesses which it sold to an estimated 100 000 clients including 7 000 federal state and local law enforcement agencies 30 march 2005 estimates . 5 however this data had not been secured sufficiently to prevent theft of data on at least one occasion see below . the company had also been the subject of lawsuits for maintaining inaccurate data inquiries whether it allowed political bias to influence its performance of government contracts and accused of illegally selling the data of overseas citizens to the u.s. government . choicepoint was used to perform consumer and criminal background checks on prospective employees of the obama administration . 6 contents 1 activities 2 florida voter file contract 3 major security breaches 3.1 incident made public due to california law 3.2 investigations 3.3 cost to the company 3.4 changes to business practices 4 other topics 4.1 out of date data 4.2 national credit audit corporation 4.3 clue database misuse 5 see also 6 references 7 external links activities edit choicepoint generated revenue of around us 1 billion in 2006 7 and employed around 5 500 people at nearly 60 locations in the us and uk . 8 the company s activities included the following 30 march 2005 estimates 5 consumer initiated transactions 60 % of business most of which are regulated by the fair credit reporting act . these included pre employment screening insurance underwriting services tenant screening services consumer record reporting and title insurance finances marketing services 9 % none of which include the distribution of personally identifiable information but are regulated by state and federal do not mail and do not call legislation . contracts with local and federal law enforcement agencies 5 % data and authentication solutions 6 % including litigation and debt collection support to law firms financial institutions and general business . software and technology services 20 % which do not include the distribution of personally identifiable information . choicepoint s database of personal information contained names addresses social security numbers credit reports and other sensitive data . in 2005 this database contained 250 terabytes of data on 220 million people . 9 choicepoint also operated the comprehensive loss underwriting exchange clue a database used by insurance companies to share histories of claims or damage reports on property . 10 the clue database includes identification information on properties such as homes and automobiles policy records name date of birth policy number and records of claims date and type of loss amounts paid . as of 2006 history is kept for five years . it contains records of damage reports regardless of whether the damage resulted in a claim . 10 in november 2014 lexisnexis risk solutions bought health market science hms a supplier of high quality data about us healthcare professionals . 11 florida voter file contract edit choicepoint became embroiled in the florida voter file controversy of 2000 through its acquisition of database technologies founded by hank asher and known as dbt online inc. a data analysis company in the same year . during the u.s. presidential election of 2000 people in florida were struck from central voter file and not permitted to vote . the u.s. presidential election hinged on the outcome of the vote in florida . dbt online had been contracted to provide a list of voters barred from voting by the state of florida in 1998 for us 4 million including a first year fee of us 2 317 800 . the 1998 contracting process involved no bidding . citation needed in the aftermath of the vote the owner of dbt online choicepoint was accused of cooperating with florida governor jeb bush secretary of state of florida katherine harris and florida elections unit chief clay roberts in voter fraud conspiracy involving the central voter file . it was also accused of having a bias in favor of the republican party for knowingly using inaccurate data and for racial discrimination citation needed . the allegations charge that 57 700 people 15 % of the list primarily democrats of african american and hispanic descent were incorrectly listed as felons and thus barred from voting citation needed . reports estimate that 80 % of these people would have voted and that 90 % of those who would have voted would have voted for al gore . 12 other allegations include listing voters as felons for alleged crimes said to have been committed several years in the future . the official and disputed margin of victory in the election was 537 votes . choicepoint says that it acquired dbt online after dbt delivered the initial 2000 voter exception list to florida officials for verification and that it has no involvement in any election in any country . 13 however choicepoint s acquisition of dbt online was made public on 14 february 2000 and in may 2000 dbt discovered that approximately 8 000 names were erroneously placed on the exclusion list so their claim of no involvement does not match the timeline . 14 choicepoint vice president james lee said that at least 8 000 names were incorrectly listed in this fashion when the company passed on a list given by the state of texas and these names were removed prior to the election . fagan described this error as a minor glitch . 15 choicepoint as a matter of policy does not verify the accuracy of its data arguing that it is simply compiling public information and that it is the original collectors responsibility to verify accuracy . 16 on april 17 2000 choicepoint vice president martin fagen testified at a special congressional hearing in atlanta that florida had ordered dbt to add to the list voters who matched 80 % of an ineligible voter s name middle initials and suffixes were to be dropped while nicknames and aliases were added . citation needed in addition names were considered reversible for example clarence thomas could be added in place of thomas clarence . lee opened his testimony by noting that choicepoint intended to get out of the voter purge industry . then on february 16 2001 dbt senior vice president george bruder testified before the u.s. commission on civil rights that the company had misinformed the florida supervisors of elections regarding the usage of race in compiling the list . greg palast concluded an african american felon named will whiting might wipe out the registration of an innocent african american will whiting but not the rights of an innocent caucasian will whiting . palast alleges that 80 % of the 57 700 people allegedly barred from voting were african american . major security breaches edit choicepoint has suffered several security breaches which have led to the theft of the personal information it holds . the company has been criticized as much for the way it has handled the thefts as the incidents themselves . its actions over a substantial breach in 2004 led to calls for new national privacy laws in the us to protect the personal data of americans . 17 since then reports published in the media say the company has improved its privacy practices . choicepoint discovered on september 27 2004 that some of its small business customers in los angeles were engaged in suspicious activity . the company notified police but did not inform the individuals whose data was leaked until early february 2005 . at first the company only notified some 35 000 california residents as required by law in that state . after a public outcry for more information the company notified a further 128 000 us citizens whose records were improperly accessed . 18 thieves used previously stolen identities to create apparently legitimate businesses seeking choicepoint accounts . over the course of more than a year they then opened about 50 accounts and received personal information on individuals including names addresses and identification numbers . the old fashioned scheme that did not involve any hacking allowed each fake company account to collect just enough data to fly under the radar 19 in order to facilitate at least 750 cases of identity theft . 20 in total more than 5 000 cases of identity theft were reported as the result of the breach . 18 the scam came to light when 41 year old nigerian citizen olatunji oluwatosin was detected attempting to gain access to personal data held by choicepoint . olatunji oluwatosin was arrested in october 2004 with five cell phones and three credit cards that belonged to other people according to investigators . he was sentenced by the los angeles county superior court in february 2005 to 16 months in prison . 21 incident made public due to california law edit the incident became public because of a california notification law that came into effect on 1 july 2003 requiring companies to notify individuals when their personal information has been stolen . further until pressured by investigations see below choicepoint restricted its search of compromised records to the 15 months that the california law had been in force leading it to identify 145 000 records against the eventual total of 163 000 . 20 investigations edit the security breach sparked a number of investigations to include members of congress the federal trade commission the us securities and exchange commission and us state attorneys general as well as personal lawsuits . 22 media investigations generated by the incident brought to light that choicepoint had suffered a previous similar id theft in 2002 . a similar scam of establishing fake businesses has been used to make between 7 000 and 10 000 inquiries on names and social security numbers to commit at least us 1 million in fraud . 23 congress members rebuked the company for the security breaches its intention only to notify california citizens of the breach and proposed federal privacy reforms . the company eventually reached an agreement with around 20 state attorneys general to notify individuals in other states that their data had been stolen . cost to the company edit the incident cost choicepoint millions of dollars . the company reported charges of us 11.4 million related to the incident in the first six months of 2005 including us 2 million to notify victims of the incident and us 9.4 million in legal and professional fees . 24 changes to business practices to avoid further breaches were expected to cost the company between 15 million and 20 million in sales during 2005 and to reduce earnings per share by 10 cents to 12 cents . 25 in january 2006 choicepoint was fined us 15 million by the federal trade commission us 10 million in civil penalties and us 5 million to compensate victims of the security breach . in addition choicepoint was required to take steps to better secure personal information . 26 27 the announcements of frauds and the fines have been accompanied by substantial falls in the value of