
“I have a copy of a Terrorism Blacklist. Should it be shared?” - pizza
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/4q840n/terrorism_blacklist_i_have_a_copy_should_it_be/
======
trhway
>A few years ago, Thomson Reuters purchased a company for $530 million. Part
of this deal included a global database of "heightened-risk individuals"
called World-Check that Thomson Reuters maintains to this day. According to
Vice.com, World-Check is used by over 300 government and intelligence
agencies, 49 of the 50 biggest banks, and 9 of the top 10 global law firms.

sounds like "terrorism score" a-la FICO. Of course in case of FICO there are
laws and regulations, and you have the right to see your credit report and can
contact the related credit bureau, card issuer, merchant, etc. to
rectify/challenge the incorrect records...

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wool_gather
You've illicitly acquired a copy of a commercial product relating to U.S.
national security and you're just throwing your name out there on _reddit_?

Is you lost your marbles?

Contact a journalist so you can figure out how to properly handle this
information. Contact a lawyer to try to cover your ass.

And ask Russia if there's a room down the hall from Snowden that you can use.

~~~
geff82
Seems to want to be a Snowden-Lookalike. Cheap.

~~~
NobleSir
Eh, I don't think we should discourage whistleblowers because it's not "cool"
anymore because someone else did it first..

~~~
mynewtb
This has little to do with whistleblowing.

~~~
gotothewayforwa
Wrong.

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pascalmemories
And tomorrows reddit posting:

"Help, I've just been forced into an orange jumpsuit, blindfolded and put on a
plane to Gitmo. Should I be worried?"

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ortusdux
Does anyone have a ballpark guess as to what Thompson Reuters sells this list
for? Here is their product page:

[https://risk.thomsonreuters.com/products/world-
check](https://risk.thomsonreuters.com/products/world-check)

~~~
dogma1138
Really depends on how you integrate it they have varied level of integration
from a simply pass/fail check to full details and analysis. The most common
way of using is that you buy user access to [https://www.world-
check.com/frontend/login/](https://www.world-check.com/frontend/login/) and
just upload CSV's of names and they produce you a risk rating for each name
(with some confedence score). The pricing starts at couple of 100K's a year
and goes up when you add the value added and bespoke services to it.

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dogma1138
The World-Check DB has very little to do with actual terrorism. While it does
include a lot of individuals that are also on the US sanctioned lists due to
terrorism it's more or less of a risk rating DB for individual and
organizations based on many many factors.

It targets, money launderers, people involved in fraud, people who were
involved in scandals, people who are the targets of large scale criminal or
civil lawsuits and many many other things including political risk of doing
business with individuals and organizations.

This isn't the no flight list, this is a DB of potential impacts on your
business mainly around direct financial loss if you do business with any of
the individuals on that list.

Just to be clear only 20-25% (out of those only 1-2% are due to terrorism, the
rest is just normal crime) of the people on that list come from sanctioners
like the US government and the European Union, the rest is data they have
collected and 75% of their data is about PEP's mainly from media and public
records. This is more of a high school gossip list than anything else and the
25% of names which are actually sanctioned are available publically the US and
other country do not have secret sanctioned lists.

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nxzero
Let's assume that every single entry on the list is accurate.

Why is Thomson Reuters maintaining a list like this?

Why would payment to Thomson Reuters be the only filter to access a list like
this?

~~~
dd9990
It's not accurate. See [1]. Some of the material is sourced from PR statements
from foreign governments like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

It's ironic that an anti-terrorism list is been used by brutal, foreign
regimes to co-op British banks and institutions into harassing people whose
only "crime" has been becoming members of groups they don't like.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/28/finsbury-
par...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/28/finsbury-park-mosque-
chairman-mohammed-kozbar-banks-terrorism-world-check-list)

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dmix
A "check if your name/email is on the list" style site with rate-limiting
might be a better option, rather than a full public dump. That way it answers
a key question for interested people without exposing some of the people who
are rightfully on the list. So it doesn't get indexed on google/public search
engines or provide the means to auto-notify people, for example.

Although I'm sure there are plenty of people who think information should all
be free and accessible, and could potentially exploit that type of system to
get all the names.

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jacquesm
> my ear will be wide open if you do wish for my copy of the database to
> remain private and you have any persuasive reasoning.

Is that code for 'if you pay me enough'?

~~~
FoundTheStuff
It's actually code for: "I'm willing to be reasonable and seriously consider
both legal and ethical arguments you may have."

This isn't about money.

[yeah, I'm the original Reddit poster]

~~~
mthoms
I like that you posted this to gather opinions and create a discussion around
the ethical implications of it all. Kudos.

I'm wondering why you chose to use your real name though. Seems like there
would be little benefit and very high risk in doing so.

~~~
FoundTheStuff
I've used it before in reporting large data finds (such as US voter
databases). It's really more about standing up and saying "I'm not afraid."

~~~
gotothewayforwa
I'm not afraid too! Let's be friends! (David House)

Edit: Public figure ala Snowden. Please reconsider your removal of my personal
information, and consider that I am faithful in my motives, ala the poster I
have responded to. Kthx. _judging of HN increases_

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mynewtb
> The database is already accessible to anyone that is willing to pay Thomson
> Reuters for it.

Nothing to see than someone feeling important. Move along folk, let's hope
this private list does not get dumped into the hands of random internet
zealots.

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geff82
It is not difficult to get hold of lists like this when you work in banking.

