Choicepoint Case Study

ChoicePoint Data Breach of 2005

ChoicePoint was a "information broker," meaning it bought, stored and sold the personal information of 163,000 consumers. This information could include the consumer's name, address, financial information and Social Security number. ChoicePoint falsified security information that verified the safety of its IS. ChoicePoint also turned some data over to questionable businesses that signed on as information subscribers. Some of these businesses were fraudulent and used the consumers' information for more than 800 cases of identity theft. After an investigation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined the company a total of $15 million and ordered regular third-party audits of the company.

Ethical Analysis of ChoicePoint Case

Different types of companies have different information in their systems. For example, retailers have records of their customers' credit card numbers from purchases and email providers have a record of all the information their customers share and save. The difference with ChoicePoint was that it held information solely to hold and sell that information. It should have been doubly careful to ensure its reputation and as part of basic business ethics. Instead ChoicePoint representatives lied to regulators and purposely compromised consumer's private data. ChoicePoint's actions were both unethical and illegal.

In 2006, AOL posted 20 million keyword searches that could be traced to 650,000 AOL subscribers. The information was quickly pulled, and those