Word: bureaus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Once people surrender personal details-for instance, to banks in applying for mortgages- they lose control over the information forever. They have no legal right to inspect most private files to contest or correct them. Nor can they prevent the records from being shared among banks, credit bureaus and insurance companies, or shown to employers. or turned over to law enforce ment agencies. Says Douglas Lea, counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights: "Privacy is power. What we're really talking about is whether the Government and other large organizations will have power over the individual." Warns California...
...being hurt unnecessarily. The commission reports that many private investigators do not double-check data that may be wrong often gather far more information than is needed and sometimes use illegal methods. While people have a legal right to know what information is kept about them by credit bureaus- so that it can be corrected- they do not have a similar right to inspect files maintained on them by private investigators, insurance companies and other businesses. Says Linowes: "There were enough stories of data misuse to suggest that the potential for abuse is limitless...
Government and private snoops also have easy access to the records in credit bureaus and credit card companies on the income, job history, shopping habits, travel and entertainment expenditures of more than 100 million Americans. Even the most elaborate safeguards cannot prevent unauthorized snoops from getting at the information. Last year TRW Credit Data discovered that a ring of criminals, for fees of $600 to $1,000, was cleaning up bad credit records stored by TRW's computer...
...firms freely exchange files with each other; thus a mistake made by one of them can be quickly compounded. The commission found that credit bureaus often mix up people with similar names, resulting in unwarranted refusals of credit. The firms can keep adverse information on file for up to seven years so a deadbeat who reforms cannot easily start afresh...
...Direct credit bureaus, insurance agencies, private investigators and employers to tell people whether files are being kept on them...