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News in Brief;Firm in Florida election fiasco earns millions from files on foreigners

01 May 2003

A data-gathering company that was embroiled in the Florida 2000 election fiasco is being paid millions of dollars by the Bush administration to collect detailed personal information on the populations of foreign countries, enraging several governments who say the records may have been illegally obtained.

US government purchasing documents show that the company,
ChoicePoint, received at least $11m (£6.86m) from the
department of justice last year to supply data - mainly on Latin
Americans - that included names and addresses, occupations,
dates of birth, passport numbers and "physical description".
Even tax records and blood groups are reportedly included.

Nicaraguan police have raided two offices suspected of providing
the information. The revelations threaten to shatter public trust in
electoral institutions, especially in Mexico, where the
government has begun an investigation.

The controversy is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint. The
company's subsidiary, Database Technologies, was responsible
for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records,
with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately
black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been
able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the
presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida by a few hundred
votes.

Legal experts in the US and Mexico said ChoicePoint could be
liable for prosecution if those who supplied it with the personal
information could be proven to have broken local laws. That
raises the possibility that any person whose data was
accessible to American officials could take legal action against
the US government.

"Anybody who felt they were affected by this could take the US
government to court," said Julio Tellez, an expert in Mexican
information legislation at the Tec de Monterrey University. "We
could all do it ... We are not prepared to sell our intimacies for a
fistful of dollars."

How the US is using the information remains mysterious,
although its focus on Latin America suggests obvious
applications in targeting illegal immigrants. Whatever the
reasons, its commitment to ChoicePoint is long-term: last year's
$11m payment was part of a contract worth $67m that runs until
2005.

ChoicePoint denied breaking any laws. "All information collected
by ChoicePoint on foreign citizens is obtained legally from public
agencies or private vendors," it said. It also denied purchasing
"election registry information" from Mexico.

Oliver Burkeman in Washington and Jo Tuck