Privacy Policy
LocatePLUS is sensitive to the privacy and security concerns that individuals have expressed regarding personal information, and LocatePLUS only distributes personally-identifiable information about individuals in accordance with the principles adopted by the Individual Reference Services Group (http://www.irsg.org) in December 1997, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This webpage is designed to provide you with information on the IRSG Principles and our commitment to fair information practices.
Individual reference services and the IRSG principles
LocatePLUS is a National Information Service provider. We offer nonpublic and public information to those entities who qualify to receive this information under the IRSG Principals and the Driver Privacy Protection Act (18 USC 2721, et seq).
LocatePLUS's commitment to the IRSG
We provide commercial and professional users with access to databases of public records and business information. This information is used to locate individuals, to verify identities, and to clarify the relationships between businesses, people and assets.
Our customers consist of Law enforcement agents, private investigators, law firms, Government agents, Bail bondsmen, Recovery agencies, and private companies. These customers use our data for a variety of business purposes. For example, lawyers use our databases to locate witnesses and parties for litigation. Private investigators use our services to locate "deadbeat" parents. Companies and law enforcement agencies use our information when they are investigating fraud and identity theft.
Every LocatePLUS customer is required to sign an agreement with us that restricts the customer's use of our data. Our customers agree to only use our data for legal, appropriate purposes. Additionally, because LocatePLUS is not a consumer credit reporting agency, we do not permit any of our customers to use our information in connection with consumer credit transactions, employment screening, consumer insurance underwriting or residential tenant screening.
Types of information distributed by LocatePLUS
LocatePLUS distributes public records, publicly-available information and nonpublic information. These terms refer to the source of the information. The following definitions have been agreed by various information industry and government groups:
* Public Records are compiled by various public offices and agencies with the intent and for the purpose of being made publicly available. Examples of public records include real estate records, lien filings, corporate records, lawsuit information and birth, marriage, divorce and death records.
* Publicly available information generally originates with the individual himself or herself and is provided in the course of routine business transactions such as ordering telephone service, placing catalog orders, making retail purchases, and joining book clubs. Published telephone numbers, household demographics, street addresses, and church and school alumni directory information all fall within this category. Information contained in newspapers and magazines and on the Internet also considered to be publicly available.
* Private or nonpublic information is not generally available from public records or commercial sources. Nonpublic information includes information that is protected from disclosure by law or by custom, such as credit reports, medical records, employment records, and income tax returns.
It's important to note that the status of information depends on the information's source. A certain piece of information may be a matter of public record as well as publicly available and nonpublic. For example, your home address may be contained in a public record (such as the deed to your property that is on file in your county's property records office). Your address may be publicly available from your local telephone directory, and your address may be contained in a nonpublic database, such as a credit bureau database.
Many people incorrectly believe that some information, such as Social Security numbers or mothers' maiden names, are always nonpublic. This is not true. For example, while individuals may believe generally that their mother's maiden name is a "private" fact (and while credit grantors may treat this data as private or secure), birth records are public record in every state. Since birth records typically contain the maiden name of the maternal parent, the information is not only private, it's public record. Similarly, Social Security numbers are often included in public records, such as lawsuit filings, driving records and bankruptcy records.
Nonpublic data available from LocatePLUS
LocatePLUS distributes nonpublic individual identifying information on adult individuals obtained from Trans Union. This nonpublic information consists solely of the following data:
* The individual's name
* His or her current address
* His or her social security number (which is provided only to certain highly-qualified customers)
* Any previous names that he or she may have used, such as a maiden name or previous married name
* His or her previous address
* The month and year of his or her birth
LocatePLUS does not obtain any nonpublic credit information from the credit reporting agencies or any other sources.
Additionally, LocatePLUS does not distribute any nonpublic information about children or any information that was collected solely for marketing purposes. Finally, while the nonpublic information may contain your maiden name, it does not include your mother's maiden name or any other information about your parents or family.
LocatePLUS only provides nonpublic information to qualified commercial and professional users, we do not provide any nonpublic information to the general public. As noted above, each of our commercial customers has a written agreement with us that restricts the customer's use of our data.
Opting out of the LocatePLUS database
You cannot opt out of our having your information distributed by LocatePLUS. Public records, by law, must be available from the official public records office to anyone who requests them. Accordingly, because individuals cannot opt out of public records databases generally, we do not offer individuals the opportunity to opt out of our public records databases. In order for any database of public records to be useful, the databases must contain all of the information in the public records offices, and we do not remove or suppress any information that is both accurate and publicly available.
Additionally, because we do not make any nonpublic information available to the general public, we do not offer individuals the opportunity to opt out of the nonpublic databases. Our databases are used by investigators, law enforcement agents and lawyers who are trying to locate criminals, debtors and other bad actors. Accordingly, it would defeat the purpose of our service if we gave these types of individuals the ability to opt out of being found.
Companies that make nonpublic data available to the general public do offer opt outs, and, in the event that we ever make our nonpublic databases available to the general public, we will implement an opt out for individuals who request it in accordance with the IRSG principles.
Access to nonpublic information that LocatePLUS distributes about you
We are happy to provide you with a copy of the nonpublic information about you that is available from our system. At this time, for security reasons, we are not able to process email requests for print outs of personal information. Instead, please send a written request to:
LocatePLUS
ATTN: Nonpublic information disclosure
100 Cummings Center, Suite 216G
Beverly, MA 01915
The request must contain the following:
* Your name and complete (current) address
* Your social security number
* Your signature
* Your Date of Birth
* A check or money order for $25.00 payable to LocatePLUS
Upon receipt of the request, we will search our nonpublic databases using your Social Security number. For security reasons, we will mail the report to the most current address available from the credit reporting agencies. Reports will not be available via email or facsimile. This policy helps ensure that your report cannot be obtained by anyone other than you. If you believe that we may have difficulty verifying your address, please include a daytime phone number with your request so that we may contact you for additional information.
If any information in your consumer credit report is inaccurate, you will need to contact the specific consumer credit reporting agency - please tell the agency that there is an inaccuracy in your header information, and ask the agency to send you a copy of your consumer disclosure. Each agency has its own procedure for correcting its credit reports, and this process also ensures that the consumer credit reporting agencies will provide correct data to others who may access your credit report in the future. The consumer credit reporting agency may be contacted at the following number:
Trans Union: Consumer Relations at 1-800-851-2674 connects you to a Recording that addresses requests for copies of your credit report or you may speak to a representative. Or visit Trans Union online at http://www.transunion.com
Please note that the identifying information in your consumer credit report comes from you and from companies you do business with, from credit applications and accounts. Inaccurate information appears in credit reports when applications are filled out improperly or incompletely or when mistakes are made in reporting account data. For example, if your Social Security number is 123-45-6789, a clerk may incorrectly type this number as 213-45-6789 when setting up a charge account for you. This incorrect number may then appear in your credit report as your Social Security number. If the number 213-45-6789 belongs to another individual, that individual's name and address may get linked to you as well. (This is why it is essential to carefully proofread all credit applications and account statements.)
