U.S. Used Illegaly Obtained Personal Data
The U.S. government has been cut-off from a major source of data on Latin American citizens. The U.S. had purchased access to a database containing the personal information of 65 million voting-age Mexican citizens, allowing three dozen U.S. agencies to use it to track and arrest suspects inside and outside the U.S. However, the data vendor, Atlanta-based ChoicePoint Inc. recently erased its files on citizens in Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica after an outcry from these countries and others in Latin America regarding the company's means of obtaining this information. In particular, the Mexican government complained that its federal voter rolls were the source of ChoicePoint's data, and were likely obtained illegally by a Mexican company that sold them to the vendor. All told, Choice Point has collected personal information on residents of 10 Latin American countries - apparently without their consent or knowledge.
ChoicePoint Said To Stop Selling Data On Mexicans To US The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2003
