Your Info (Right Or Wrong) Is Not Your Own

Scams

from the and-so-it-goes... dept

Two separate pieces this morning highlight a number of points that have been popping up on Techdirt quite a bit over the past few weeks. The first is a summary (once again) of all of the various private data leaks/hacks/handouts/whatever that may have put your personal data at risk. To be honest, while it’s getting a lot of attention this month, it’s likely that this is all par for the course. It’s just that the press has finally picked up on it. The article notes that, so far, the only thing Congress has done is try to make the punishment for identity theft higher — which is an after the fact solution, that does little to push companies to be more secure with their your data. The article also notes, again, that none of these data leaks came via the internet, and there was nothing any individual could have done to stop them. The second story concerns the fact that ChoicePoint has plenty of incorrect data about people — and no way to request a change. It turns out (whooooops!) that’s against the law. Of course, given their apparent inability to protect your data, perhaps it’s good that they can’t get your data correct. Maybe people should start purposely putting errors into these reports so they can track who’s leaking the data.