LexisNexis Risk Solutions


LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a global data and analytics company that provides data and technology services, analytics, predictive insights and fraud prevention for a wide range of industries. It is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia and has offices throughout the U.S. and in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Ireland, Israel, Philippines and the U.K. The company’s customers include businesses within the insurance, financial services, healthcare and corporate sectors as well as the local, state and federal government, law enforcement and public safety.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions operates within the Risk & Business Analytics market segment of RELX, a multinational information and analytics company based in London.

Overview

Market Segments

LexisNexis Risk Solutions operates in four market segments:
LexisNexis Risk Solutions uses HPCC Systems, also known as DAS, extensively—its software architecture runs from commodity computing clusters to provide high-performance, data-parallel processing for big data applications. The HPCC Systems platform includes a data refinery and a rapid data delivery engine that utilize the Enterprise Control Language. LexisNexis Risk Solutions open-sourced the HPCC Systems platform in 2011, and has seen some success with the adoption of this platform by diverse entities, an example being GuardHat, which makes smart hard hats with embedded HPCC Systems technology.

History

A subsidiary of RELX, LexisNexis Risk Solutions first began as the Risk & Information Analytics Group within LexisNexis, a corporation offering legal database services. In 2000, Reed Elsevier acquired RiskWise and PeopleWise, which together became the basis of RIAG. The creation of RIAG expanded LexisNexis offerings to include public records collections. In 2000, LexisNexis also launched HPCC Systems, its data-intensive computing system platform.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions moved into Collections after Reed Elsevier acquired the public records businesses of Dolan Media Company in 2003. That same year, the LexisNexis Special Services Inc. was founded to provide government agencies with global sources of data fusion technology and analytics. LNSSI also granted Reed Elsevier the ability to participate in classified U.S. government programs as a foreign-owned entity.
In 2004, Reed Elsevier purchased Seisint Inc., based in Boca Raton, Florida. Seisint housed and operated the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange.
In September 2008, Reed Elsevier purchased data aggregator ChoicePoint. This acquisition included an insurance business and the C.L.U.E. database, an underwriting database for the U.S. auto insurance market. LexisNexis completed the migration of public records to HPCC Systems the same year.

Launch

In September 2009, ChoicePoint was integrated with the Risk & Information Analytics Group, and the combined new entity became LexisNexis Risk Solutions. In 2011, LexisNexis Risk Solutions was officially launched as a separate company within the Reed Elsevier portfolio.
Mark Kelsey was named CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions in December 2012. Over the next two years the company purchased 12 companies including: WorldCompliance, Enclarity, Mapflow, Tracesmart, Wunelli and Health Market Science.

Divestiture

In January 2013, LexisNexis Risk Solutions announced it would sell its background screening business to the Palo Alto-based private equity firm Symphony Technology Group. STG planned to combine LexisNexis screening with its portfolio company, First Advantage.

Insurance Initiatives Ltd. (2016)

In July 2016, LexisNexis Risk Solutions acquired Insurance Initiatives Ltd., a data distribution platform that extracts, hosts and processes large quantities of data to deliver information into the point-of-quote in the U.K.'s Property and Casualty Insurance industry.

ThreatMetrix (2018)

RELX purchased ThreatMetrix, a digital identity and risk-based authenticator platform, in February 2018.

Lumen (2019)

In May 2019, LexisNexis Risk Solutions purchased Lumen, an integrated data platform leveraged by public safety and law enforcement from Numerica Corporation.

ID Analytics (2020)

In January 2020, LexisNexis Risk Solutions closed its acquisition of ID Analytics, a provider of fraud and credit risk solutions. Previously ID Analytics was a NortonLifeLock company.

Emailage (2020)

In March 2020, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, acquired Emailage, an Arizona-based fraud prevention and risk management solutions provider.

Governance

LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a subsidiary of RELX.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Reed Business Information compose RELX’s Risk & Business Analytics market segment, led by CEO Mark Kelsey and overseen by the RELX board of directors.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Missing Children

U.S.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions developed the ADAM program in 2000 to help the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children find missing children. ADAM distributes missing child alert posters to law enforcement, hospitals, libraries and businesses within specific geographic search areas. The system was expanded in 2017 to allow individuals to receive an email alert when a child is reported missing near to them.
In 2017, a feature was added to ADAM to allow NCMEC to focus on a highway where a missing child and abductor may be travelling in order to distribute posters to recipients along the relevant corridor. Combining this filter along with the system’s radius search allows for broad, yet targeted, poster coverage. Functionality was added to ADAM to allow members of the public to sign up for missing child email alerts in their area. More than 1.8 million individuals, private enterprises, hospitals, schools, news outlets and law agencies have signed up to receive automated ADAM alerts.

U.K.

In 2017, LexisNexis Risk Solutions began working with the charity Missing People and the UK National Crime Agency to support their Child Rescue Alert service, which disseminates missing alerts via text message. Along with Charlie Hedges Advisory, LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Missing People scoped a training course to assist law enforcement, schools, hospitals and others with missing cases, particularly those involving children who are abducted and/or trafficked.

Food Stamp Fraud Prevention

Since 2013, the Florida Department of Children Families has used LexisNexis Risk Solutions to identity management solutions to prevent food stamp fraud and improve operational efficiencies, achieving a total cost avoidance of more than $843.7 million.

Humanitarian Emergency Education

In 2017, LexisNexis Risk Solutions developed the Global Business Coalition for Education’s Rapid Education Action database to record private sector educational contributions and assets that can be deployed quickly in the wake of a humanitarian emergency.

Law Enforcement

PSDE Database

The Public Safety Data Exchange is a contributory database that of more than 1,300 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. that was created by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. PSDEX helps its participants solve crimes, identify threats and anticipate future threats. LexisNexis Risk Solutions created an Advisory Committee to advise on policy and governance of PSDEX data, to help assure adherence to federal Criminal Justice Information Services, state and local standards for security and privacy of law enforcement-provided data. The PSDEX Advisory Committee is composed of former Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, metropolitan police department and other criminal justice experts, in partnership with LexisNexis Risk Solutions leaders.

LexisNexis Accurint Virtual Crime Center

The LexisNexis Accurint Virtual Crime Center gives law enforcement “greater visibility into crime in both their jurisdictions and nationwide by linking billions of public records with agency-provided data.” It links to PSDEX and brings together disconnected data to provide a more comprehensive view of people’s identities so that law enforcement agencies can better target investigations, identify patterns, predict upcoming events and deploy resources more efficiently.

Controversies

Antitrust Challenge

On February 21, 2008, Reed Elsevier announced plans to acquire ChoicePoint, Inc. for $3.6 billion. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission challenged the proposed acquisition, charging that it would be anti-competitive and in violation of the antitrust laws as the acquisition “would combine the two largest providers of electronic public record services to U.S. law enforcement customers.” In order to expedite regulatory clearance from the FTC, ChoicePoint agreed to divest a portion of its U.S. public records business serving the government sector. On September 16, 2008, Reed Elsevier announced that it received clearance to proceed with the acquisition.

Data Breaches and Settlements

In October 2009, the FTC ordered ChoicePoint to pay $275,000 to consumers to settle charges that it violated a previous settlement order stemming from a 2005 data breach. The FTC charged that ChoicePoint had failed to implement a court-ordered information security program and alleged that an unauthorized person was subsequently able to access the company’s database in 2008. The alleged incident took place prior to Reed Elsevier’s acquisition of ChoicePoint.

Federal Contract Compliance Programs Settlement

In January 2017, LexisNexis Risk Solutions reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to pay over $1.2 million to resolve allegations of systemic pay discrimination against women at its facilities in Alpharetta, Georgia, and Boca Raton, Florida.

Automobile Accident Report Settlement

On July 2, 2019, LexisNexis Risk Solutions reached a settlement agreement resolving a multi-jurisdictional investigation and complaint regarding the resale of automobile accident reports. The settlement, which included no finding or admission of wrongdoing or liability by LexisNexis Risk Solutions or any LexisNexis entity, involved a disagreement over the meaning of contract language about payments made to law enforcement customers after crash reports are resold. Although LexisNexis Risk Solutions disagreed with the interpretation of the contracts by the jurisdictions, the company ultimately decided to settle. The settlement agreement with the participating state and city governments included payments that were be passed on to the agencies in those jurisdictions with which the company contracted to benefit the affected law enforcement agencies.