Dow Jones’ watch list of 2.4 million people is exposed

A watch list of risky individuals and corporate entities owned by Dow Jones has been exposed, after a company with access to the database left it on a server without a password, reports Zack Whittaker of TechCrunch.

Whittaker reports, “The data is all collected from public sources, such as news articles and government filings. Many of the individual records were sourced from Dow Jones’ Factiva news archive, which ingests data from many news sources — including the Dow Jones-owned The Wall Street Journal. But the very inclusion of a person or company’s name, or the reason why a name exists in the database, is proprietary and closely guarded.

“Many financial institutions and government agencies use the database to approve or deny financing, or even in the shuttering of bank accounts, the BBC previously reported. Others have reported that it can take little or weak evidence to land someone on the watchlists.

“The records we saw vary wildly, but can include names, addresses, cities and their location, whether they are deceased or not and, in some cases, photographs. Diachenko also found dates of birth and genders. Each profile had extensive notes collected from Factiva and other sources.”

Read more here.