Self-Regulation
Financial firms and other keepers of our private information are arguing before Congress that they don’t need stricter laws because they will do a better job of not selling, losing, or exposing our personal information to hackers and identity thieves.
They promise.
In recent months, it has come to light that a number of financial firms and data brokers have sold, lost, or exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. The laws that govern what they can and cannot sell are currently very vague, and there is no requirement that they notify us if they do somehow release our information into the wild. Just a couple of recent news items:
ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Ga., “sold personal information on at least 145,000 Americans to criminals posing as legitimate companies.”
ChoicePoint president Douglas Curling testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he extended “sincere apology to those customers whose information may have been accessed by the criminals who perpetrated this fraud.”
He said that ChoicePoint was cutting back on its sale of information.
Kurt P. Sanford, chief executive officer for corporate and federal markets at the data brokerage LexisNexis, revealed to the committee that personal information of 310,000 customers may have been revealed over the last 27 months, about 10 times the number first disclosed.
Personal information for 600,000 current and former Time Warner employees has been lost, the company has said.
…Time Warner waited for more than a month before notifying current and past employees that their personal information may have been compromised.
Most industry representatives agreed that individual companies should set their own standards for “significant harm,” and offered long explanations of the recourses offered to patrons who have become victims of identity theft.
Of course, our loving congress is looking out for us, right? Well, uh…
The Republican leadership of the House Financial Services Committee will soon begin drafting identity theft legislation. Its members largely concurred Wednesday with the industries’ recommendation to leave them out of any new rules.
Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?
