Blog: Dan E. Linstedt

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Oh Where - Oh Where has my identity gone?

Holy Begonias!!! Talk about breach of security, and loss of personal identity. This story: "Credit card firms don't have to warn individuals" seems to ludicrous to ignore.

This is just a plane outrage. In this blog we'll explore what this means to corporations, especially with precedence set - beware: I'm warning you now, this entry is mostly a RANT.

This is incredulous. How can a judge in San Francisco say that credit card companies don't have to report "break-ins" or successful hack attempts on 40 million+ consumers? He must not have had his identity stolen!

In terms of personal loss, this is tremendously devastating. The ruling makes a statement to corporations everywhere that they no longer need to "admit" that all that information they collected from you, was stolen. That's right! Of course, that means it also makes it easier for the corporations to "sign agreements" to share information without your knowledge.

* What happens to the privacy policies? Out the window.
* How about Information "protection promises"? Meaningless.

If corporations follow suit, we will have chaos very very soon.

What if a medical claims company has their system hacked, and all your medical information was "compromised" (to use their terms). What if this medical claims company (or financial company for that matter) doesn't have to tell you that your personal information was stolen, and now appears on free hacker sites all over the world? Did this judge stop to think about all the rules that HIPPA states about privacy of medical information? I think not. The information may have to remain private, but if it's stolen - well, the company doesn't have to tell you about it.

This is one of those things that is just a BIG MISTAKE by a judge. I'm sorry, but if I can't own the information about me, the next best thing is to hold the credit card (and all the other) companies accountable for what happens to it! So what's the score now?

Accountability ZERO, Deceit TEN.

My oh my, and if we stop to think of what this does to Information Quality? If the information that is stolen is flat-out wrong, now there's absolutely no way to get it "fixed."

Bottom line? This ruling opened a Pandora’s box: You can't trust anything anyone ever says about keeping your information "private" anymore.

Anyone else care to Rant? Rant anonymously if you wish...

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