The US professional body for accountants, CPA, has rejected criticisms that its introduction of fingerprinting of exam candidates was imposed in a rush.
Institute members received an e-mail campaign protesting about the new requirement, saying that it was introduced without prior notice, webCPA.com reported.
‘It was widely publicised a year ahead of time. One member has started a campaign against it,’ said AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon.
He said the requirement was a necessity, as some people had been discovered taking the multi-part test for other CPA candidates.
Melancon said state leaders had been alerted about the new exam requirements and there had been more than 100,000 downloads on the AICPA web site about them. He also noted other standardised exams use fingerprinting, including the Medical College Admission Test, Law School Admission Test and Graduate Management Admission Test.
However, US members at the CPA’s spring council meeting raised concerns about the selection of ChoicePoint for compiling the database. The company was victim of a high-profile data breach in 2005 when identity thieves were able to set up bogus accounts. The company has since taken steps to fix its security, is now owned by Reed Elsevier.
There was also disagreement about how long ChoicePoint and Prometric would be holding the data. AICPA officials emphasised that the companies will hold the fingerprinting information for five years only. But one member in attendance said that he had received contradictory information when he phoned the AICPA and Prometric about this point.
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