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Data Leaks: Blame The Lawyers!
from the gotta-blame-someone dept
FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle has a way of talking sense on a lot of issues that you don't often hear from folks in the government. He's the guy, after all, who said the definition of spam should be "anything the recipient doesn't like" in pointing out how difficult it was to create effective anti-spam laws. Now he's looking at the issue of all of these data leaks from companies like ChoicePoint, LexisNexis and plenty of others. In a discussion on the issue he says that many people seem to be looking at the wrong things. First off, the focus in Congress seems to be entirely on "identity theft," when the real issue isn't the theft of identities, but the mishandling of information. And who's to blame for that? According to Swindle, we should be going after the corporate lawyers at all of these firms who set up the loosest rules possible, with all sorts of caveats and almost no promises -- allowing these firms to legally be loose with your data. Instead of worrying about setting up agreements to avoid getting sued, these companies should have been working on ways to actually protect all that data they were collecting.
Reader Comments
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Databases
I don't recall agreeing to anything, so why should I be barred from suing these idiots or anyone else. I have always had a problem with people collecting data and selling it when it is tracable to a person, and that is called selling someone else privacy.
It should simply be illegal for any private group to collect the information for anything other than immediate use, and if caught should be dealt out of existence. this goes for banks, business anyone in my book.
The less anyone has on you, the better.
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Re: Databases
1. Umm, you might want to take a look at this article on data in databases:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/technology/18data.html
2. As to going after corporate lawyers - yeah right!. That would be equivalent to a kid kicking the tooth fairy in the teeth.
Our Congress is brought and paid for by the corporations. I don't think there is an honest legislator amongst them, someone who is willing to stand up for principle, someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, someone who is willing to take a stand, regardless of how it might effect their future as a legislator.
Congress is not going to go after after lawyers in any big way. Furgetaboutit.
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Swindle?
His name is Swindle? How ironic.
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