>>After hearing the kind of stuff Choice Point has on people it probably needs two fronts - what the government can do/have and what "private enterprise" can do/have, as well as when the twain can meet.
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>There are already different constraints as to what the government and private concerns can have. We use social security numbers all the time to determine who we are dealing with, but in private industry that is a no-no.

I understand. My problem is that government especially seems more inclined now to consider "the letter of the law" rather than the spirit of the law.
I can easily see private enterprise being asked by their government customers "Do you have such-and-such information, which we need real bad?" and the enterprise sying to 'itself' "hmmm, if the government wants us to provide that information it must be legal so lets go get it.".

I'd say, too, that to my knowledge it is really only the social security number that has the limitation you mention. But that leads many of us to believe that there are therefore many things that are "sacred" when there are not.
I think, too, that credit bureaux are permitted to store the SIN.
Medical information from your medical practitioners is also on the list, but the fact of the matter is that is easily got around by private business by asking for specific medically-related information on their application forms, under penalty of some kind if not truthful. Then it ends up at Choice Poit and the other places anyway.