The purpose of the customer database was twofold. When the telecommunications companies first proposed their clearinghouse to the DOJ, they claimed that its “principal purpose” was “to provide carriers with advance warning about customers who pose a credit risk.” A potential customer with a history of leaving balances unpaid, for example, might be asked to pay a larger deposit. But the carriers also planned for this pool of records to serve as a “skip tracing” tool – a way to track down customers who left unpaid bills behind. Customers may terminate services or move away, but anytime they signed up with another utility provider in the group, the clearinghouse would update with the new addresses and contact information listed on their applications.
To make it even easier to trace old customers to new addresses, the initial group of telecommunications carriers decided to invite gas, water and electric providers to contribute their customers’ records as well. According to another filing that the telecoms wrote to the DOJ in 2002, “the services provided by utilities companies are tied to physical location,” which means that they “tend to have accurate address information.” With the addition of 37 utility companies contributing customer information, the group became known as NCTUE. The NCTUE database became not only a useful tool for credit evaluation but also one of the most reliable sources of information on where people live.
When ICE agents used CLEAR to access millions of names and addresses from utility records, they were most likely viewing customer data that NCTUE’s member companies handed over to Equifax. Such an extensive collection of utility record data was unlikely to come from any other source, as the NCTUE database is reportedly “by far the largest database of utility, pay TV, and telecom payment records” in the nation. Equifax has also actively touted the NCTUE database’s effectiveness in capturing “that elusive segment of the market – the no-hit or thin-files,” who would likely be absent from the credit header data that Thomson Reuters gets from other credit agencies like Experian and TransUnion.
While no entity involved in supplying Thomson Reuters with utility records has confirmed their exact provenance, the dataset that Equifax manages for NCTUE and the dataset it handed over to CLEAR are near identical in number: CLEAR claims to hold over 400 million names and addresses obtained from more than 80 utility providers, and Equifax reveals that the NCTUE database contains over 400 million records from more than 85 companies.
Equifax and NCTUE have remained secretive about the full list of utility companies whose customers’ records have ended up in the NCTUE database – and therefore likely in the hands of ICE – but evidence indicates that it has included national giants like Verizon and AT&T as well as regional utilities like Baltimore Gas & Electric and Piedmont Natural Gas. Evidence also suggests that even some publicly held service providers like Nevada Energy and the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department have participated in the data exchange. Additional service providers that may have been part of NCTUE are listed in the Appendix.
ICE’s broad access to utility data impacts millions of customers from dozens of utility providers across the U.S. The CLEAR utility dataset is drawn from national and regional telephone, cable, satellite, gas and electric and water providers across the country, including a special “focus on the top 50 companies.” The dataset encapsulates utility customers in all 50 states and the district, as well as Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and it is updated daily.