The U. S. Secret Service is investigating allegations that an officer at the Miami-Dade Police Department misused identification and passwords to gain access to consumer data maintained by ChoicePoint.
A posting Friday on the Web site for the Alpharetta GA-based data aggregator said the alleged misuse might involve the data from 4,689 consumer accounts. In a letter to those consumers, ChoicePoint said the police department employee was not authorized to use the account that provided the ID and password data and “had accessed information illegally and acted outside the scope of his employment.”
The company said that consumer data exposed included Social Security data, driver’s license numbers, and dates of birth. ChoicePoint also said it was not certain whether any identity theft had actually occurred.
A Miami-Dade police spokesperson told the press that the officer involved has been relieved of duty pending an internal investigation.
ChoicePoint drew national attention in February when it revealed that ID thieves posing as small business owners got illicit access to its records, potentially exposing the personal data of 145,000 consumers.
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