Posted on 09/24/2003 10:08:54 AM PDT by HAL9000
Little Rock’s Acxiom Corp. has spent most of the two years since the attacks of Sept. 11 looking for government contracts to help fight the war on terror. It has found the contracts. Now it has a fight on its hands. The data-management company is involved in a growing dispute over the release of information on millions of airline passengers to a Defense Department contractor last year.Acxiom sold that contractor demographic data on roughly 2 million airline passengers — about 40 percent of those involved — as part of its role in the war on terror.
As a result it now faces criticism from a Washington, D. C., privacy rights group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
That group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Monday, claiming that Acxiom and JetBlue Airways Corp. violated privacy policies that both companies publicize online, and thus violated federal laws against deceptive trade practices.
JetBlue became the target of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security on Monday for its role in releasing the information. Lawsuits filed in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles against the airline seek class-action status, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. "They made a lot of assurances to the public about how information — personal information — would be handled," said Marcia Hofmann, a spokesman for the privacy rights group, "when in fact, as far as I knew, there is no evidence that no one was being told that this information had been sold."
Airline security is an area Acxiom had hoped to work in since as early as February 2002, according to lobbying reports filed with the U.S. House of Representatives.
Wesley Clark, an Acxiom board member and now a presidential front-runner for the Democratic Party, had lobbied for the company, according to those reports, in the areas of "information transfers, airline security and homeland security issues."
Clark was not involved in the contract addressed in the group’s complaint and no longer lobbies for Acxiom, company spokesman Dale Ingram said.
Calls to Clark’s campaign staff were not returned Tuesday.
Privacy is a touchy subject at Acxiom, which says it handles information on "a vast majority of U.S. households" for both itself and its clients, Ingram said.
In the past, the company has claimed to have information on 96 percent of U.S. households. "Building trust is central to our business, to our clients and our consumers," Ingram said. "We are very interested in setting the record straight."
Privacy is also a major issue at the FTC, which in recent years has gone after several major corporations — including Microsoft Corp., Gap Inc., and Eli Lilly and Co. — after suspecting them of making false statements about consumer privacy policies. "Privacy is hugely important," said Jessica Rich, an assistant director at the FTC. "Its profile is just as high as ever."
According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s complaint, a defense contractor in Huntsville, Ala., Torch Concepts Inc., received information on 5 million JetBlue passengers in September 2002 as part of an airline security project.
The contractor had hoped to develop a system using demographic data to identify potential terrorists among airline passengers, a task it described as finding "a needle in a haystack without knowing what the needle looks like," according to a presentation Torch Concepts gave on the project to a defense industry association in February.
JetBlue’s information was insufficient to create an accurate model, however, according to that presentation, and in October 2002, Torch Concepts purchased demographic information on 40 percent of those passengers from Acxiom.
That information included passengers’ sexes, whether they owned their homes and how long they’d lived there, incomes, number of children, Social Security numbers, occupations, and number of vehicles, according to Torch Concept’s presentation.
Acxiom’s information allowed Torch Concepts to "develop an acceptable database," according to the contractor’s presentation, and conclude that "known airline terrorists appear readily distinguishable from the normal JetBlue passenger patterns."
Torch Concepts had claimed it needed the additional information for a project to improve "military base security," not airline passenger screening, according to an Acxiom statement issued Tuesday.
Torch Concepts did not return phone calls Tuesday.
The privacy rights group’s complaint quotes Acxiom’s privacy policy, which states that the company "believes individuals should have access to information a company has about them," that notices should be provided that "explain the collection, use and distribution" of personal information, and that "most importantly, individuals should have the choice to opt out of the use of their data."
The complaint states, "There is no evidence that Acxiom provided notice to or obtained the consent of any passengers whose personal information was sold to Torch Concepts."
Acxiom denies it violated its own policies. In a statement issued Tuesday, it said its policy states that it provides personal information to "government agencies for the purposes of verifying information, employment screening and assisting law enforcement."
Ingram said: "Data is a critical element in making our country safer. In this case we believe the data was being used to protect the men and women on military bases who are helping protect us."
If Wesley Clark is Big Brother, the voters have a right to know. He can't dodge the question forever. What did Acxiom get in return for the $300,000 annual payment to Wesley Clark?
"That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
Anyway, it looks like we on the net are creating a stir...good job Hal.
bump
Scandal rocks Acxiom!
How often have we heard statements like that, eh!
deny Deny DENY
lies
bump
won't go away, sowwway!
BUMP
ping
bttt
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