1/ Today, based on research by @NinaLWang, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic & Consumer Policy and @RepJimmyGomez sent letters to Equifax and Thomson Reuters demanding info on how companies share utility information with ICE. From @DrewHarwell: washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
2/ It’s been known that ICE could access 400M+ customer profiles from 80+ water, gas, electric & other utilities companies through its subscription to Thomson Reuters CLEAR. It's also been known that Thomson Reuters doesn’t collect these records itself—it gets them from Equifax.
3/ But no one knew how Equifax got these records.
No one knew exactly which companies were providing their customers’ names and home addresses to Equifax and ultimately, to ICE.
@NinaLWang began to connect the dots.
No one knew exactly which companies were providing their customers’ names and home addresses to Equifax and ultimately, to ICE.
@NinaLWang began to connect the dots.
4/ With help from @ConMijente and @EmpowerLLC, our research suggests that these records may come from the companies in a secretive credit bureau called the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE)—whose database is exclusively managed by Equifax.
5/ If this is true, it would mean that ICE has the names and addresses of over 171 million people, including roughly 60% of people living in the United States.
If this is true, it also means that regular people may soon be able to figure out if their utility company has been indirectly sharing their information with ICE.
6/ This is a massive betrayal of trust.
Immigrants can avoid contact with agencies like the DMV, but can't go without heat or water. ICE is exploiting the fact that people need these basic services in order to find and target them.
Immigrants can avoid contact with agencies like the DMV, but can't go without heat or water. ICE is exploiting the fact that people need these basic services in order to find and target them.
7/ Water, heat, electricity—these are essential to the welfare of all people. Data collected when people obtain these services should be protected.
Read more about our findings at @NinaLWang’s blog post: medium.com/center-on-priv…
Read more about our findings at @NinaLWang’s blog post: medium.com/center-on-priv…
8/ The 171 million count comes from this frame of a video from Equifax's Youtube channel: drive.google.com/file/d/14xFazC…
The video was taken down and re-uploaded without this frame a few months ago.
The video was taken down and re-uploaded without this frame a few months ago.
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