Public outrage has a way of knocking the wind out of misguided misanthropes whenever our collective privacy is threatened. Remember when Lotus quickly withdrew its Marketplace CD-ROM product after thousands of citizens let the company know what it could do with the disc?
A few months ago Lexis-Nexis thought it would be a good idea to let anyone find anyone else’s Social Security number simply by entering a name in a search form within the company’s P-TRAK Personal Locator service. In addition to Social Security numbers, P-TRAK provides up to three addresses, all known aliases, telephone numbers, and maiden names. While there are restrictions on how the government can use Social Security numbers, there are no regulations over private use by organizations or individuals.
It didn’t take long for folks to realize that this was a Bad Idea and let Lexis-Nexis know about it in no uncertain terms. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in rocket science to see immediately just how bad of an idea this is. With someone’s name and Social Security number just about any sort of identification fraud is possible.
So many people called Lexis-Nexis demanding to have their information removed from the company’s databases that Lexis-Nexis had to stop accepting phone requests for removal. You can request your information be removed from the P-TRAK database by filling out a WWW-based form, by sending an .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), by faxing +1 (800) 470 4365, or by paper mail to P-TRAK, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401. This won’t guarantee the removal of your information, of course; Lexis-Nexis has no legal obligation to do so.
Lexis-Nexis claims to have 300 million names in its P-TRAK database, which it markets to lawyers and law-enforcement agencies. Since Lexis-Nexis doesn’t screen its 740,000 clients, the P-TRAK information is available to anyone who can pony up the US$125 monthly subscription fee. Lexis-Nexis is also careful to point out that it can’t be held responsible for how its clients use the information the company provides.
On June 11, 1996, Lexis-Nexis removed the Social Security numbers from its P-TRAK database in response to consumer complaints and published a statement with regard to ongoing misinformation within the Internet community about the P-TRAK service. Ironically, private information can still be obtained through the P-TRAK service if a target Social Security number is entered. Most privacy experts agree this poses just as serious an identification fraud problem.
Lexis-Nexis is far from alone in the field of brokering private information on citizens. There are at least five competing products from very large corporate conglomerates as well as a plethora of similar products and services from smaller concerns, many of which are available at no charge.
The sound you hear when your modem connects is your loss of control of your personal information. But threats to your privacy don’t stop there. The United States government is dead set on eliminating the privacy of its citizens’ communications with a smorgasbord of initiatives and pending legislation. And as if that’s not enough, law enforcement is determined to eliminate location privacy as well.
In September 1996 the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it would be a Good Idea to turn American citizens’ cellular phones into tracking devices. That your location is known when you use your cellular phone is nothing new, of course. Your cellular phone wouldn’t work if the technology couldn’t track your location. What is new is that federal government and law enforcement wants access to that information. And the FBI claims it has a right to that information under the terms of the October 1994 Digital Wiretap law. Never mind that Congress has already denied the FBI access to cellular phone location information and that FBI director Louis Freeh made specific promises not to pursue the issue.
Using an April 1996 report, entitled the Electronic Surveillance Interface, the FBI quietly tried to coerce cellular telephone engineers into building surveillance capabilities into every cellular phone built. Surveillance capabilities, according to the report, must include not only the ability to eavesdrop on conversations but the ability to report the precise location of the user and whether that user has sent or received voice mail, participated in conference calls, or used other custom calling features.
The FBI’s coercion should come as no surprise. What is alarming, though, is that this coercion took place outside the clear light of day. Take a cell-phone nerd to lunch because as a group they told the FBI (and the Justice Department) to take a hike.
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