by Jeff Sovern The article is headlined Congress grapples with preventing the next Equifax-level hack. Excerpt: Their ideas included like fining companies that fail to adequately protect consumer data, restructuring the credit reporting industry to allow for more competition and requiring data holders to notify consumers whose information has been compromised. A slew of legislation aimed […]
Category Archives: Privacy
by Jeff Sovern As has been widely reported, Equifax waited about six weeks to disclose its breach, which makes me wonder if we would ever have learned about the breach if the laws requiring disclosures of breaches didn’t exist. And in recent years, Equifax has lobbied aggressively on breach laws. All this left me curious […]
by Jeff Sovern Reuters has a report here. Excerpt: The U.S. consumer finance watchdog agency is expected to punish Equifax for its cyber breach with the wide-ranging powers it has used with Wall Street, former agency officials and lawyers said this week. The credit-reporting company is subject to five federal laws governing listed companies, the […]
by Jeff Sovern More here. We can expect that the senators will attempt to outdo each other in attacking Mr. Smith, but that some will still try to protect Equifax when the cameras are off, by weakening regulators (as some members of Congress are attempting to do in the House-passed Financial Choice Act, by eliminating […]
Here. The whole column is definitely worth a read, but here's an excerpt: The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act is particularly noxious. Authored by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the bill would cap actual and statutory damages for class actions involving credit agencies at $500,000, and completely eliminate punitive damages. Loudermilk said Friday that his bill “is […]
Last week, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, WashU law professor Danielle D'Onfro proposed one way to hold Equifax accountable: "some old-fashioned judge-made doctrine." According to D'Onfro, "the data economy has outgrown our consumer protection regulations and we are on our own." She refers to a "Swiss cheese system of regulations that carry […]
Here, in the LA Times. Excerpt: First, visit the company’s often crashing Web page to check if your information was compromised. Then decide whether to sign up for the one year of free credit monitoring, * * * Next, the personal finance experts said, freeze your credit reports, not just at Equifax, but at its […]
by Jeff Sovern Equifax is, as expected, turning into a huge consumer protection story and as with many such stories, it is generating so much news that not only is it hard to keep up, it seems easier to give up. Still, I wanted to direct our readers to a report in the Times, Equifax […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. The customers in question had purchased Equifax's credit monitoring service. You know, the service it's now offering for free. Oh, and in addition to the CFPB investigation, the NY AG's investigation, and the class actions, the FTC is now investigating the security breach.
by Jeff Sovern Brian posted earlier about a letter from senators on the Equifax breach. Not to be outdone, the two dozen Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have written their own letter to Equifax, raising numerous questions about the breach. Among them are queries about the Equifax's arbitration clause, security freeze, credit monitoring services, […]