February 28, 2005
Barbara Simpson
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
What's your name? Address? Phone and other contact numbers? What's your income? Business interests? Investments? How about that Social Security number – and while we're at it, driver's license number? Those bank and security account numbers would be nice, and computer and other passwords, too.
Interesting questions, eh? Yes, and they're about information that anyone with a sane bone in their body would keep private. Private, according to Webster's: "not open to or controlled by the public; secret."
For me, it's important to have a private life, with private information. I like that veil of secrecy between my family and our lives and the rest of the world. Some of that privacy is simply that the rest of the world has no need to know all about us. The other part has to do with protecting personal information from those who would steal it to defraud. That used to be relatively easy. But, no more!
The situation is out of control. There's simply no privacy left and security for our private information is laughable.
The very organizations we expect to protect us – banks, insurance companies, credit agencies – seem not only to be a bit casual with our private information, but, in fact, treat it as a commodity.
The first ugly truth is that private, personal and vital information about each of us is bought and sold in a whole new business sector. The second ugly truth is that we can't control it, can't stop it and usually don't even know it's happening.
What's worse is that there are more and more instances of that data getting lost. Imagine – "losing" thousands of files of vital, private information leaving all those people sitting ducks for personal financial mayhem.
The latest shockers – two major corporations revealed the loss of private information involving at least 1.3 million people!
Bank of America went public on Feb. 25 that at least 1.2 million federal employee credit card account holders had their private account information lost. Perhaps stolen. They don't know.
Every one of those account holders is at risk for financial or identity fraud. With identity theft one of the most rapidly growing scams, it appears that the good old Bank of America let things get a bit out of hand.
Apparently their data backup tapes were being moved across country by air and somewhere along the way, they disappeared. Just like that! Reportedly, it's suspected the tapes were stolen during baggage handling on a commercial flight.
Surprise. Surprise. Thefts from airline baggage!
The public announcement was at the end of February, but the tapes disappeared last December. It was kept quiet during investigations by the feds and the bank – which turned up nothing more than they already knew: The tapes are gone. Bank of America says it's notifying their cardholders of the situation by mail.
Can you picture the look on the face of the individual who opened the letter at the Pentagon? The bulk of the accounts are from there! Spokesman Bryan Whitman call it "a significant number of the department's employees" – how about some 900,000!
In addition, about 40 other federal agencies are affected, plus non-government cardholders, and U.S. senators, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
That's a gigantic "oops"! No doubt, the victims will be comforted by those notification letters, replacement cards, a toll-free hotline and free credit reports. No word on who foots the bill if anyone is ripped off or has their identity stolen.
Scarcely a week before, it was revealed that ChoicePoint, a data-collection outfit in Alpharetta, Ga., got scammed by a coordinated data theft. Private identity information files on more than 145,000 people across the country are gone.
They realized the loss in October, investigated, but didn't go public until last month. One person was charged – a Nigerian citizen who last week pleaded no contest. He got 16 months. Any others involved are out there ... somewhere.
ChoicePoint is a data broker, collecting personal, public-record information and selling it, without asking our permission. It has an estimated 19 billion files of information about virtually every person in the country – Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers to business and property transactions.
They're sending out notification letters, too. Did you get yours?
California is the only state requiring such companies to protect personal data and to notify people immediately when information is stolen. Attorney General Bill Lockyer wants to know this week what ChoicePoint did to prevent the loss. If California laws were broken or residents improperly notified, the penalties are $2,500 per violation.
The company at first only notified Californians. When the attorneys general from the 38 other states involved put pressure on, all the victims are being notified.
Gee, thanks.
These incidents aren't unique. There's no consistency in state laws and no federal laws controlling these companies. There's nothing we can do about the fact that companies we do business with sell our personal information.
We're being taken for fools by a system telling us, with a straight face, it's protecting us and by politicians, so pressured by lobbyists, that they avoid needed laws. It's time for a change.
Barbara Simpson, "The Babe in the Bunker" as she's known to her KSFO 560 radio talk-show audience in San Francisco, has a 20-year radio, television and newspaper career in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
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