ChoicePoint files found riddled with errors

Glaring errors and omissions
What first caught Pierce's eye, she said, was a heading titled "possible Texas criminal history."  A short paragraph suggested additional, "manual" research, because three Texas court records had been found that might be connected to her. "A manual search on PIERCE D.S." is recommended, it said.

Pierce says she's only visited Texas twice briefly, and never had any trouble with the law there.

"But if I was applying for a job, and there were other candidates, and this was on my record, the company would obviously go for another person," she said. "It raises a question in your mind."

It's not clear prospective employers would see that part of Pierce's file as part of an employment background check.  The firm declined to answer specific questions about Pierce's report -- or to confirm its authenticity -- but said it was likely designed for law enforcement officials.

"It is ... only intended for trained investigators who use the information as a directional guide of where to go to confirm facts in the public record," said spokeswoman Kristen McCaughan. Internet searches indicate the reports are also sold to private investigators.

On ChoicePoint's Web site, the National Comprehensive Report is described as a collection of searches that glean data from "national and state databases for a summary of assets, driver licenses, professional licenses, real property, vehicles, and more. Each report offers the ability to add associates to the report, which include relatives, others linked to the same addresses as the subject and neighbors."

Knowing former addresses and neighbors — assuming such information was correct — would be of obvious utility to law enforcement officials investigating a crime.  

But even if the report was only marketed to law enforcement, Pierce said she was still concerned about who might end up seeing the information. And there were many more inaccuracies that troubled her.

Under former addresses, an ex-boyfriend's address was listed. Pierce said she never lived there, and in fact, he moved into that house after they broke up. The report also listed three automobiles she never owned and three companies listed that she never owned or worked for. 

Under the relatives section, her sister's ex-husband was listed. And there are seven other people listed as relatives who Pierce doesn't know.

"There are all these other people in my file. I find that offensive," she said.

Most alarming to Pierce is the fact that, with all this information, the ChoicePoint report she received had glaring omissions, too. Many of her former addresses aren't listed; and despite the host of other people listed on her report, many relatives and nearby neighbors were missing.

"I see my next door neighbor almost every day when I'm here. And he's not there," she said. "If you were going to do an investigation on me, he'd be the one you'd want to talk to, not the burrito place on the corner. ... It really makes you call into question the effectiveness of this kind of data collection."

His ChoicePoint report said he was dead
Pierce's experience neatly parallels that of Richard Smith, another privacy advocate, who paid a $20 fee and received a similar report from ChoicePoint several years ago. The company offers a wide variety of reports on individuals; Smith purchased a commercial version that's sold to curious consumers.

Smith's dossier had the same kind of errors that Pierce reported. His file also suggested a manual search of Texas court records was required, and listed him as connected to 30 businesses which he knew nothing about.

Some of the mistakes on Smith's report were comical: That his wife had a child three years before they were married, that he had been married previously to another woman, and most absurd, that he had died in 1976.

"Pretty obviously the data quality is low," Smith said.

He equated a ChoicePoint report to the results of a Google search on a person -- solid information is mixed in with dozens of unrelated items. The more common a name, the more extraneous information is produced.

"People who use this data should keep that in mind," Smith said.

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