An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg:
Hey Mark, not sure if you need any help at your upcoming congressional hearing but I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
Equifax negligently leaked the highly sensitive personal and financial details about consumers including names, birthdates, street addresses, credit card numbers, drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers of over 145 million Americans.
Facebook “exposed raw data” of 50 million users.
I’m not sure what “raw data” of mine Facebook has but my Facebook account doesn’t seem to have an effect on my day-to-day life like interest rates on loans, credit cards and qualifying for a mortgage, car loan, etc.
If I recall correctly it was all information that I volunteered (what pages or brands I like, for some users, it may include their political interests, etc.).
Heck, Facebook doesn’t even have my real phone number or address!
In addition, If someone stole my Facebook identity I should be able to get that back with relative ease but if one of the 148 million had their real identity stolen it requires quite a bit of work to resolve that.
Mark, I would recommend you call Equifax and find out who their lobbyists are and buy them for a month or two if you think you really need to.
I don’t think you will need to go that far at all. In fact, if I recall correctly, the punishment Congress handed down to Equifax was… absolutely nothing!
The government didn’t even pass a law in an attempt to protect consumer information in the future by penalizing these types of breaches.
You’re golden, man! No worries!