Facing a wave of concern about personal privacy, database giant Lexis-Nexis has announced it will allow individuals to see information the company has compiled on them.
One company database, P-TRAK, contains personal information such as name, address, month and year of birth, phone number, two previous addresses, and maiden name. P-TRAK is often used by private companies to track down individuals. Until now, people who were not subscribers to the costly service (US$85 per search plus the subscription fee) could not see their own records.
Lexis-Nexis will now allow people to check out their P-TRAK by paying what the company calls a small but as yet unannounced fee. This, the company says, is part of an ongoing effort to create self-regulatory standards on computer database privacy.
P-TRAK came under fire a year ago when the company was displaying Social Security numbers in its files. Lexis-Nexis quickly stopped displaying the numbers.
