The Digital Lords of Credit Don't Care About You

The lordliness of those in power bugs me the most. I'm not talking about the hard core, dyed in the wool political animals. I'm talking about the private agencies and organizations which collect and disseminate credit information about you and me. The big three—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian and all the ungoverned thousands of small data brokers—are getting more and more closed mouthed about actual and potential data losses. That may not mean much to you at first glance, but realization dawns when you understand that these giant companies that collect, collate and maintain many Petabytes of data, simply aren't the secure fortresses you'd expect them to be.

Recently, CTV's W5 program reported Equifax's refusal to talk about a network intrusion which is alleged to have compromised hundreds of thousands of individual consumer data files. The aggravatingly secretive overlords at Equifax say little and communicate nothing. Unconfirmable reports amount to rumor. More . . .