Friday, June 01, 2007

ChoicePoint Settles Breach Case With 44 States

ChoicePoint has settled with all 44 states which sued the company over its 2005 security breach.

ChoicePoint agreed to adopt stronger security measures and pay $500,000 to the states, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Considering the company had 44 state AGs suing it, over a very highly publicized privacy breach, a settlement for $500,000 and tighter security procedures, which they were going to do anyway, is a very good deal for ChoicePoint.

The security measures are designed to make sure that their third party customers are using the personal information ChoicePoint markets for legitimate reasons. This will apparently include getting written certification from their customers, or even onsite visits to those customers by ChoicePoint.

ChoicePoint also agreed to conduct periodic audits of companies getting consumers' personal information to ensure that they are not using the information for illegitmate purposes.