On December 6, 2006, the U.S. Federal Trace Commission (FTC) made claims form available for anyone who believes they had identity theft occur as a result of the Choicepoint security incident late in 2004 involving at least 163,000 individuals. Since then around 1,400 individuals have indicated they have been victims of identity theft as a result of that incident.
The claim letter was a condition of the $15 million settlement FTC had with Choicepoint; $5 million of this total amount is earmarked to be given to the individuals who suffer losses as a result of the incident.
If you think you were a victim as a result of this incident, you need to mail your claim form so that it is postmarked by February 4, 2007 for consideration. The list of example losses being reimbursed is interesting. The FTC indicates it is also considering reimbursing individuals for the time involved with addressing all the negative repercussons.
Tags: awareness and training, Choicepoint, FTC, identity theft, Information Security, IT compliance, policies and procedures, privacy, privacy breach