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There's Bob Sullivan, the Red Tape Chronicles author. Then there's Bob Sullivan, who might be a bankrupt child molester with a brother who's a killer. One is flesh and blood, one is a computer creation. But in our digital age, who's to say which one is real? If perception takes on its own reality, certainly a computer creation can, too. If you use the Internet today to conduct a background search on me, you might get the idea that I have been convicted of child molestation, and I have a close male relative who’s been convicted of manslaughter. Let me assure you, neither is true. But let me try to convince you that there is a crisis at hand.  Databases are spinning out of control. Our country is awash in data that is secretly collected, inaccurately transcribed, sloppily connected. As they say in the business, there’s a lot of dirty data. But dirty data is being used to make important decisions that affect us. It decides who gets home loans and car loans, who gets credit cards, who gets insurance, even who goes to jail.
And sometimes, it's used to falsely taint people as potential child molesters and murderers. Today, if you went to a number of prominent Web sites -- including Yahoo.com -- and decided you wanted to purchase a background check on me, you'd be led to a service named Intelius.com. The site's motto is "Building Trust." Until recently, it was "We know." Intelius is one of hundreds of sites that offer consumers the ability to perform background checks on anyone. No license required. No permission slip required. Just type in a name and a state, and up comes a list of potential targets. Select a name from a list that looks about right, pay about $50, and off you go. It is Intelius.com’s computers that seem to think I might be a molester with a murderous relative. Connection to dot-com mania
The site is run by data maven Naveen Jain, who rocketed to fame and fortune in the go-go 1990s as head of former dot-com darling Infospace.com. At the height of Internet mania, Jain was worth $8 billion, and Infospace worth more than Boeing Corp. Infospace stock took an historic tumble when the bubble burst, spurred in part by questions about the company’s revenue projections. In 2002, Jain was replaced as CEO. Soon after, Jain founded Intelius. The firm offers background checks and identity-theft protection services. Consumers can sign up and receive warnings any time there’s a new account opened in their name, or there’s a public record indicating an unusual event like a change of address. Jain says he has 3 million paying customers now. After receiving an invitation to Intelius' Bellevue, Wash., offices last year, I tried out the background service. I was in for a big surprise. 'Child molestation 1'
Using Intelius is easy enough. You type in a name and a state; then you are presented with a list of potential “hits.” There were a few dozen Robert Sullivans in Washington state; I picked the one who lived in my hometown, whose age matched mine, as a neighbor might do. And I agreed to pay the $50 fee. The report I received was seven pages long. Under a section titled "Criminal Check," two possible convictions were listed. One indicated it was for an unspecified offense. The other charge: "Child molestation 1." There's also a civil judgment listed under my name, a bankruptcy filing. But that's not all. Under the section "Possible Relatives and Associates Report," Intelius lists the names and phone numbers of my parents, my sister and a mysterious "Shawn Sullivan." When I clicked on Shawn's name, I received additional details about him. Shawn is listed as having a possible conviction for involuntary manslaughter. Again, none of these things are true about me. |
