CitiFinancial Data Goes Poof
Once again we have absolute proof of why our private information should be under closer control.....BY US! We, as owners of our own personal property have an obligation to force the businesses who are now profiting from OUR information, to return control to us. OUR credit reports should belong to us, and WE should decide to whom they should be sent and for what purpose.
Organizations should be prohibited by law from asking for our social security numbers. We should be able to have our credit reports and other personal information purged from organizations at will. Once credit has been granted or denied, all information regarding that individual besides their account number, contact information and payment records should be purged. Companies who do not comply, or who allow information they hold to be "stolen" should be responsible for the outcome as a cost of doing business. After all, they are making plenty of money off of the information, loss of it should be a liability to them, not to us.
And again, if companies and other organizations who make money off of keeping this information, and whose businesses depend on maintaining this information in safety and privacy, can't do it, how can government, who has no such incentive, possibly convince us that they will keep things any safer?
CitiFinancial Data Goes Poof: "Computer tapes with bank account information for 3.9 million people are missing. The consumer finance division of Citigroup starts notifying customers that UPS lost their records on route to a credit bureau about a month ago."
(Via Wired News.)