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Experian

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Not to be confused with Xperia or Xperi.

Experian plc
Company typePublic limited company
LSE: EXPN
FTSE 100 Component
IndustryBusiness services
PredecessorsGUS plc (1996–2006)
Founded1996; 28 years ago (1996)
HeadquartersDublin, Ireland[1][2]
Number of locations
List
Key people
RevenueIncrease US$6.619 billion (FY2023)[3]
Increase US$1.793 billion (FY2023)[3]
Decrease US$0.773 billion (FY2023)[3]
Total assetsDecrease US$10.864 billion (FY2023)[3]
Total equityDecrease US$3.964 billion (FY2023)[3]
Number of employees
21,700 (2024)[4]
Websitewww.experian.com

Experian plc is a multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more than 25 million U.S. businesses.[5][6] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Experian is a partner in USPS address validation. It is one of the "Big Three" credit-reporting agencies, alongside TransUnion and Equifax.[7]

In addition to its credit services, Experian also sells decision analytic and marketing assistance to businesses, including individual fingerprinting and targeting.[8] Its consumer services include online access to credit history and products meant to protect from fraud and identity theft.[9] Like all credit reporting agencies, the company is required by U.S. law to provide consumers with one free credit report every year.[10]

History

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The company has its origins in Credit Data Corporation, a business which was acquired by TRW Inc. in 1968,[11] and subsequently renamed TRW Information Systems and Services Inc.[12]

In November 1996, TRW sold the unit, as Experian, to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.[13] Just one month later, the two firms sold Experian to The Great Universal Stores Limited in Manchester, England, a retail conglomerate with millions of customers paying for goods on credit (later renamed GUS).[14] GUS merged its own credit-information business, CCN, which at the time was the largest credit-service company in the UK, into Experian.[15]

In October 2006, Experian was demerged from GUS and listed on the London Stock Exchange.[16][17]

In August 2005, Experian accepted a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that Experian had violated a previous settlement with the FTC. The FTC alleged that ads for the "free credit report" did not adequately disclose that Experian customers would automatically be enrolled in Experian's $79.95 credit-monitoring program.[18][Note 1]

In January 2008, Experian announced that it would cut more than 200 jobs at its Nottingham office.[19]

Experian shut down its Canadian operations on 14 April 2009.[20]

In March 2017, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Experian $3 million for providing invalid credit scores to consumers.[21]

In October 2017, Experian acquired Clarity Services, a credit bureau specialising in alternative consumer data.[22]

In October 2024, Experian agreed to acquire Brazilian digital fraud prevention provider ClearSale for $350 million.[23]

Operations

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In the United States, like the other major credit reporting bureaus, Experian is chiefly regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, signed into law in 2003, amended the FCRA to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12-month period. Like its main competitors, TransUnion and Equifax, Experian markets credit reports directly to consumers. Experian heavily markets its for-profit credit reporting service, FreeCreditReport.com, and all three agencies have been criticised and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost.[24][25]

Its market segmentation tool, Mosaic, is used by political parties to identify groups of voters. In the British version there are 15 main groups, broken down into 89 hyperspecific categories, from "corporate chieftains" to "golden empty-nesters" which can be taken down to the level of individual postcodes. It was first used by the Labour Party, but then taken up by the Conservatives in the 2015 General Election campaign.[26]

Sales to identity thieves

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In 2013 a Vietnamese national, Hieu Minh Ngo,[27] was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with attempting to sell personally identifiable information on hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents. This information had been allegedly purchased from Experian subsidiary and data aggregator Court Ventures. However, Ngo testified under oath that the information he had sold to identity thieves had actually been acquired from another hacker based in Russia, and not Experian or Court Ventures. Ngo then resold the information he acquired from the Russian hacker through the identity fraud enabling websites Superget.info and Findget.me.[28][29][30][31][32] The information offered for anonymous sale on these websites included individual's name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, place of work, duration of work, state driver's licence number, mother's maiden name, bank account number(s), bank routing number(s), email account(s) and other account passwords.[32]

Data breaches

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2015

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Letter from Experian North America CEO, Craig Boundy, informing T‑Mobile customer their personal information was compromised in Experian server hack.

On 1 October 2015 Experian announced that they had discovered a data breach existing between 1 September 2013 and 16 September 2015. As many as 15 million people who used the company's services, among them customers of American cellular company T-Mobile who had applied for Experian credit checks, may have had their private information exposed.[33][34]

2020

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In 2020 it was revealed that Experian had suffered a further data breach, on this occasion in South Africa.[35] Initially, Experian claimed that the incident had been contained[36] but subsequently this was shown to be untrue. Data on 24 million South Africans was leaked, as well as on nearly 800,000 businesses. Of these, 24,838 had financial details leaked.[37]

2021

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In January 2021 a new leak was revealed in Brazil, with the source being linked to Experian's Brazilian subsidiary Serasa Experian. The breach resulted in data of 220 million citizens (including some already dead) being sold in the web. This is probably the most severe data breach in history, as it includes names, social security numbers, income tax declaration forms, addresses and other private information on nearly all Brazilian citizens.[38] Experian claims there's no evidence that its systems have been compromised, but this lack of evidence doesn't explain it being the only probable source for the data. According to a Brazilian consumer rights foundation, the company has not been handling the breach appropriately.[39]

2022

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In late 2022 a flaw was revealed in Experian's website which allowed access to individual credit reports without full authentication, simply by changing the last part of the URL being requested from "/acr/oow/" to "/acr/report."[40] The flaw was fixed in early 2023, but it was not known how much data had been stolen through this security weakness.[41]

See also

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Explanatory notes

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  1. ^ Quotation marks around "free credit report" are part of FTC press release.

References

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  1. ^ Feisst, Melanie (27 July 2006). "Ireland has the edge, says expansive GUS". Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  2. ^ "About Experian | Company Profile | Office Locations". Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Annual Results 2023" (PDF). Experian. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  4. ^ "Profile". Experian. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  5. ^ "Credit Services". Experian. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  6. ^ "About Experian | Company Profile | Corporate Fact Sheet". Experian. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  7. ^ "How to protect yourself against the theft of your identity". The Economist. 14 September 2017. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  8. ^ Ingram, David. "Facebook cuts ties to data brokers in blow to targeted ads". U.K. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  9. ^ "Experian's Four Principal Business Groups". Experian. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  10. ^ "Free Credit Reports". Consumer Information. 26 March 2013. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  11. ^ Dyer, Davis (1998). TRW: Pioneering Technology and Innovation since 1900. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. pp. 279, 309, 390. ISBN 0-87584-606-8.
  12. ^ Marthews, Alex; Tucker, Catherine (5 December 2019). "Privacy policy and competition" (PDF). Brookings Institution. p. 13. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  13. ^ "Experian Investors Reap Substantial Returns". Los Angeles Times. 15 November 1996. Archived from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  14. ^ "GUS shares soar on pounds 1bn acquisition". The Independent. London. 15 November 1996. Archived from the original on 26 January 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  15. ^ "Large British Retailer to buy US credit data company". The New York Times. 15 November 1996. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  16. ^ "London Stock Exchange company profile". London Stock Exchange. Archived from the original on 11 July 2009. Retrieved 17 July 2009.
  17. ^ Gupta, Rohit (6 December 2018). Reward and Donation Crowdfunding: A Complete Guide for Emerging Startups. Notion Press. ISBN 978-1-68466-089-6. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  18. ^ "Consumerinfo.com Settles FTC Charges". Federal Trade Commission. Archived from the original on 6 June 2010. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  19. ^ Experian to cut 200 jobs Archived 30 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine Computer Weekly. Retrieved 3 March 2008.
  20. ^ Experian Canada Archived 10 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 25 March 2009
  21. ^ Koren, James Rufus (23 March 2017). "Credit bureau Experian fined $3 million over misleading credit scores". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  22. ^ "After acquiring Clarity Services, Experian launches alternative-data-driven solution". Auto Remarketing. 19 March 2018. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
  23. ^ "Experian buys Brazilian cyber security firm ClearSale in $350 million deal". Reuters. 4 October 2024.
  24. ^ Sullivan, Bob (10 May 2005). "Many free credit reports still aren't free". NBC News. Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 29 October 2006.
  25. ^ "Experian, Consumerinfo.com Named in Class Action Suit". ConsumerAffairs.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2006. Retrieved 29 October 2006.
  26. ^ "Tories identify eight groups of voters as Labour look to Obama campaign for inspiration: The sophisticated tools that rivals hope will win them 2015 election revealed". The Independent. London. 6 November 2013. Archived from the original on 4 November 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  27. ^ "Vietnamese National Charged in Widespread International Scheme to Steal and Sell Hundreds of Thousands of U.s. Persons' Personally Identifiable Information". 18 October 2013. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  28. ^ Schwartz, Mathew (21 October 2013). "Experian Sold Data To Vietnamese ID Theft Ring". InformationWeek. UBM Tech. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  29. ^ Seltzer, Larry (21 October 2013). "Experian caught up in ID theft investigation". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  30. ^ Masnick, Mike (21 October 2013). "How Experian Sold Consumer Data To Popular ID Theft Service". Techdirt. Floor64, Inc. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  31. ^ Doctorow, Cory (21 October 2013). "Experian sold consumer data to identity thieves' service". Boing Boing. Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  32. ^ a b Krebs, Brian (20 October 2013). "Experian Sold Consumer Data to ID Theft Service". krebsonsecurity.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  33. ^ Thielman, Sam (2 October 2015). "Experian hack exposes 15 million people's personal information". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
  34. ^ "Experian Breach Affects 15 Million Consumers". Krebs on Security. 5 October 2015. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  35. ^ "Experian Data Breach". SABRIC. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  36. ^ Shange, Naledi (20 August 2020). "How Experian was duped into handing over data on 24 million South Africans". TimesLIVE. South Africa. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  37. ^ Hosken, Graeme (13 September 2020). "Data from huge Experian breach found on the internet". The Sunday Times. South Africa. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  38. ^ "The largest personal data leakage in Brazilian history". OpenDemocracy.net. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
  39. ^ "Experian Challenged Over Massive Data Leak in Brazil". ZDNET. Archived from the original on 22 February 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
  40. ^ Krebs, Brian. "Identity Thieves Bypassed Experian Security to View Credit Reports". Krebs on Security. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  41. ^ "A Guide to Building Secure Web Applications/Preventing Common Problems/Parameter Manipulation". CGIsecurity. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
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