As it made its rounds on the Internet, it evolved into an alarming warning containing a considerable amount of misinformation, while retaining enough truth to lend it an air of credibility. It moved from newsgroup to newsgroup, and wormed its way into listservs and corporate and law firm e-mail. As I am sure you are aware, this information could be used to commit credit card fraud or otherwise allow someone else to use your identity. It contains 330 million records, each with information on individuals including current address, previous addresses, birth date, and telephone number. A variety of online services aimed at lawyers and private investigators make the same information available and have for some time.
Clients commonly use the information to locate witnesses, heirs, litigants, and shareholders.
So, the most alarming of the e-mail accusations that this information could be used to commit fraud was definitely overstated. He stated that the company supplied only information publicly available from telephone listings and courthouse documents. In addition, because this information originates from credit bureau reports, it sometimes includes unlisted telephone numbers. This caused a flurry of outrage from privacy seekers in various forums, including Law-Lib, an Internet mailing list for law librarians. The Social Security Administration and the Electronic Privacy Information Center also expressed concern about the product's availability.