Georgians among the victims of ChoicePoint identity theft case

<p>About 2,800 Georgians are believed to be among the thousands of victims whose personal information was sold to bogus businesses by Alpharetta-based ChoicePoint.</p><p>The company is expected to release a state-by-state breakdown next week, said spokesman Chuck Jones. Notification letters to Georgians whose information was exposed will be mailed by Feb. 26, he said.</p><p>Criminals used the stolen identities to set up about 50 fake businesses and access its database after posing as legitimate customers, ChoicePoint says. Investigators have estimated that between 145,000 and 500,000 people could be vulnerable to identity theft.</p><p>The company learned of the problem in October, but did not notify victims until this month because authorities did not want to jeopardize their investigation, ChoicePoint marketing director James Lee said.</p><p>The 19 billion public records in its database at its suburban Atlanta headquarters include everything from motor vehicle registrations, license and deed transfers, military records, names, addresses and Social Security numbers.</p><p>To a criminal stealing identities, the database is a gold mine.</p><p>Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has proposed legislation requiring tighter regulation of information brokers such as ChoicePoint. Her bill mirrors the California helped uncover the ChoicePoint incident because it required the company to notify people that their data had been compromised.</p><p>Feinstein's law would make a company's failure to notify individuals punishable by fines of up to $25,000 a day.</p><p>California is presently the only state with such a law on the books, but two Georgia legislators said Thursday they were drafting bills to require consumer notification and add tougher penalties for identity theft.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net: www.choicepoint.com</p>