Andre Bacard
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[email protected]                    Bacard wrote "The Computer Privacy
Stanford, California                Handbook" [Intro by Mitchell Kapor].
"Playboy" Interview (See Below)     Published by Peachpit Press, (800)
http://www.well.com/user/abacard    283-9444, ISBN # 1-56609-171-3.
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                     The Lexis-Nexis Database P-TRAK
 
      [More details available in "Chain E-Mail Causes Big Scare" by Jon
      Swartz in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE on Sept. 19, 1996 and from
      "When Technology Threatens Privacy: Public Anger Grows as Data
      Providers Sell Our Names, Numbers, and Addresses" by Tom Abate &
      Erin McCormick in the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER on September 20, 1996]
 
      Earlier in 1996, an Ohio based company named Lexis began charging
$82 to sell phone numbers, addresses, and maiden names of millions of
Americans. Lexis-Nexis spokeswoman Lesley Sprigg says that Lexis' P-Trak
database has 300 million files on individual U.S. citizens which may
include a person's name, maiden name or assumed name, current address
plus two previous ones, month and year of birth, and telephone numbers.
Lexis-Nexis has roughly 650,000 subscribers worldwide.
      "Identity theft" has become one of the fastest growing crimes in
America. Everyday people steal other people's identities to commit credit
card frauds, money laundering, drug deals, and scams of every type.
      How many criminals are accessing databases such as Lexis at this
very moment in order to ruin honest people's lives? At many universities,
anybody with a student or faculty ID can search the Lexis database (and
others like it).
      The big-business of selling YOUR private life raises five obvious
questions that YOU and the United States Congress might ask:
 
      1. Is anybody buying your records? If so, who and for what purpose?
      2. Does anyone pay you royalties or commissions when information
           about YOU is sold for a profit? If not, why not?
      3. If a criminal uses Lexis-Nexis type databases to destroy your
           credit records or reputation, who will compensate you for your
           losses?
      4. Banks claim that your mother's maiden name is "confidential." If
           this is true, how do companies like Lexis find your mother's
           maiden name?
      5. How can you PROTECT yourself from criminals and have material
           about you removed from Lexis type databases?
 
      I recommend that you telephone and write Lexis-Nexis and ask them
      to answer these questions. I also advise that you print this post
      and pass it along to your US Congressional representatives and local
      newspaper editors.
 
      The SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE article says that Lexis telephone lines
are overflowing with people who want to have their names removed from the
database. The CHRONICLE says,
           "Callers to the new hotline (800-543-6862) are told that if
           they want their name erased from the P-Trak database, they
           must say so in a letter and fax it to (513) 865-1930 or mail
           it to Lexis-Nexis, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, Ohio 45401."
 
An Internet document gives this additional information.
 
      "Andrew Bleh (rhymes with 'Play') is a manager responsible for this
      product, and is the person to whom complaints about the service
      could be directed. He can be reached at (800) 543-6862. Ask for
      extension 3385. According the Lexis, the manager responsible is Bill
      Fister at extension 1364."

For more info about your privacy under attack, see: Andre Bacard's Privacy Page