Company to rescreen 17,000 customers in wake of breach

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Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005 | 9:25 a.m.

ATLANTA -- ChoicePoint Inc., under fire for being duped into allowing criminals to access its massive database of personal information, said Monday that consumers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories may have been affected by the breach of the company's credentialing process. The data warehouser also announced plans to rescreen 17,000 business customers to make sure they are legitimate.

The Alpharetta-based company said it has hired a retired Secret Service agent to help revamp its verification process. It also has paid for a one-year subscription to a credit monitoring service for each of the 144,778 people that may have been affected by the breach.

The company said the smallest number of possible victims -- two -- was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, while the largest number -- 34,114 -- was in California. In Nevada, 739 people were affected, the company said.