US Federal Agencies Buying Data On Foreign Citizens

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

16 April 2003

It emerged this week that the US government has, for the past eighteen months, been purchasing data on Latin American citizens for use by various federal agencies.

An Associated Press report published on Tuesday revealed that US-based ChoicePoint Inc has been purchasing personal details on citizens from Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Brazil, and selling the information on to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, to name but a few government agencies.

'Our whole purpose in life is to sell data to make the world a safer place,' ChoicePoint's chief Marketing Officer, James Lee told the AP, continuing: 'There is physical danger in not knowing who someone is. What risks do people coming into our country represent? You may accept the risk, but you want to know about it.'

However, the legality of ChoicePoint's actions and those of the contractors from whom it purchases the information has been questioned by officials in the affected countries.

'I don't believe that 31 million Columbians authorized that,' lawyer and privacy expert Nelson Remolina observed with regard to the company's purchase of the country's citizen ID database, which contains information on Columbian citizens' date and place of birth, passport and national ID numbers, parentage, and physical description.

Privacy experts in the US, such as Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal, have suggested that the Latin American governments need to protect their citizens' private information by putting in place privacy laws similar to those which prohibit wholesale purchases of personal data on European citizens.

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