The data breach highlighted just how entrenched the credit bureau is in the lives of Americans, and consumers’ lack of control over their personal information.
Breach at Equifax May Impact 143M Americans – Krebs on Security
Equifax, one of the “big-three” U.S. credit bureaus, said today a data breach at the company may have affected 143 million Americans, jeopardizing consumer Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver’s license numbers.
Data Is a Toxic Asset - Schneier on Security
Thefts of personal information aren’t unusual. Every week, thieves break into networks and steal data about people, often tens of millions at a time. Most of the time it’s information that’s needed to commit fraud, as happened in 2015 to Experian and the IRS. Sometimes it’s stolen for purposes of embarrassment or coercion, as in the 2015 cases of Ashley Madison and the US Office of Personnel Management. The latter exposed highly sensitive personal data that affects security of millions of government employees, probably to the Chinese. Always it’s personal information about us, information that we shared with the expectation that the recipients would keep it secret. And in every case, they did not...
Data Leeks: Made with love, leaked by hackers | The Mozilla Blog
Data breaches are on the rise. According to web security experts, the frequency of data breaches almost doubled from 2016 to 2017, and 73% of all U.S. comp
Opinion | The Dark Market for Personal Data (Published 2014)
Companies should disclose the information they sell about us.
Brokers use ‘billions’ of data points to profile Americans
U.S. agency cites danger of errors, abuse as firms create labels based on race, income and religious beliefs
Data Breach Notification Laws: A 50-State Survey (2026 Edition) | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
This survey analyzes and compares data breach notification laws across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Using a standardized framework of 50 questions, we examined each jurisdiction's requirements for breach notification timing, covered data types, notification recipients, enforcement mechanisms, and consumer remedies.This survey reflects statutes enacted as of January 1, 2026.Explore the Data
Data Is the New Copper
Data breaches fuel a complex cybercriminal ecosystem, similar to copper thefts after the financial crisis.
Why Big Tech's Privacy Promises Are Lies
Pluralistic: The reason you can’t buy a car is the same reason that your health insurer let hackers dox you (28 Jun 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
In 2017, Equifax suffered the worst data-breach in world history, leaking the deep, nonconsensual dossiers it had compiled on 148m Americans and 15m Britons, (and 19k Canadians) into the world, to form an immortal, undeletable reservoir of kompromat and premade identity-theft kits:
Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You
Credit reporting agencies don't have thousands of your text messages.
Japan data leaks: Which poses greatest risk, licenses, credit cards or My Number cards?
TOKYO -- Leaks of personal information held by companies and other organizations have surged due to unauthorized access. The compromised data ranges f
Data Harvesting at Google Not a Rogue Act, Report Finds (Published 2012)
Google’s collecting of personal information from unsuspecting households was a program supervisors knew about, according to new details from the full text of a regulatory report.
Transparency Report Update: January – June 2025
The Automattic Trust and Safety team’s vision is to maintain safety while democratizing publishing. Earlier this year, we established five pillars that underpin our intent: user rights, safety by d…
A Duty of Loyalty for Privacy Law
Data privacy law fails to stop companies from engaging in self-serving, opportunistic behavior at the expense of those who trust them with their data. This is a
Maybe we have the cybersecurity we deserve
Companies have focused more on making the consumer recovery process from fraud and data breaches easier than on better security. Most people seem OK with that.
EFF to State AGs: Investigate Google's Broken Promise to Users
Google's Failure to Warn Users About Law Enforcement Demands for Data Is Deceptive
