Equifax settles in Corporate's umptenth failure to protect data

[Jimmy Higgins]

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The hacking (cracking) into Equifax's system exposed data for roughly 150 million, or roughly half of America.

Credit reporting agency Equifax has reached a deal to pay up to $700 million to state and federal regulators to settle probes stemming from a data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 150 million people. It will be the largest settlement ever paid for a data breach.

This equates to less than $5 a person.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday that Equifax will pay at least $300 million and as much as $425 million to compensate affected people with credit monitoring services.

Oh goody, more credit monitoring. You know, by this point, there should be a corporate data tax. If your business makes money by selling data, you pay into a fund that provides credit monitoring for all Americans. Because we've all been pretty much exposed. I'm sure DC is on top of every American's credit being put at actual risk.

Equifax will also pay $275 million in civil penalties and other compensation to 48 states, Washington, Puerto Rico and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Equifax took in over $3 billion in revenue in 2018.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Credit monitoring shouldn't be a thing.

Rather, the companies that maintain the databases should be required to notify customers of relevant changes (ie, anything but a paying-as-agreed or no-report.)