[mcbits]

Hmm, I guess you could call it slander if the person and the dossier were perfectly interchangeable. But all the institutions know is that someone has been failing to pay back loans that were issued based on the information in a dossier. After a series of fraudulent loans to "Alice Doe, SSN 123-45-6789" (the file, not the person), when some random shows up at Yet Another State Bank and tries to take out a loan under the same credentials, the credit reporter is right to warn of the risk. They don't know if Human Alice is a risk, but Paper Alice definitely is.

[sowbug]

That distinction holds up only if real Alice isn't inconvenienced in any way.

[mcbits]

She would be inconvenienced, but that doesn't mean she was slandered.

If someone steals Alice's car and commits a hit-and-run, she will be inconvenienced when the cops show up at her door, but the person who reports her plates won't be committing slander.

[Cakez0r]

But if a newspaper reported that Alice was a murderer because her stolen car was involved in a hit and run, that would be libelous.

[mcbits]

If they said they had received word that the car was registered to Alice, that wouldn't be libelous. If they said she was the driver, that would be libelous. If she was charged with murder and they said she was an alleged murderer, that wouldn't be libelous.