ChoicePoint Inc., the data broker and services company, will pay a $275,000 fine and has agreed to strengthen data security requirements to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it failed to protect sensitive consumer information, as required by a previous court order, according to the FTC.
This failure left the door open to a data breach in 2008 that compromised the personal information of 13,750 people and put them at risk of identity theft, according to the Commission.
In April 2008, ChoicePoint, now a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier Inc, allegedly turned off a key electronic security tool used to monitor access to one of its databases and for four months failed to detect that the security tool was off, according to the FTC.
During that period, an unknown person conducted unauthorized searches of a ChoicePoint database containing sensitive consumer information, including Social Security numbers, the FTC continued.
The searches allegedly continued for 30 days. After discovering the breach, the company brought the matter to the FTC
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