U.S. Sen. Mark RWarner (D-VA) issued the following statement after regulators and the credit bureau Equifax reached a $700 million settlement over a 2017 data breach that compromised the personal information of more than 145 million Americans:
“Americans don’t choose to have companies like Equifax collecting their data – by the nature of their business models, credit bureaus collect your personal information whether you want them to or not. In light of that, the penalties for failing to secure that data should be appropriately steep. While I’m happy to see that customers who have been harmed as a result of Equifax’s shoddy cybersecurity practices will see some compensation, we need structural reforms and increased oversight of credit reporting agencies in order to make sure that this never happens again.”
Sen. Warner is the leading sponsor along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) of legislation that would hold Equifax and other credit reporting agencies (CRAs) accountable for data breaches. The Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act would provide robust compensation to consumers for stolen data, impose mandatory penalties on CRAs for data breaches, and give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more direct supervisory authority over data security at CRAs. Had the bill been in effect prior to the 2017 Equifax breach, the company would have had to pay at least $1.5 billion for their failure to protect Americans’ personal information.
Companion legislation is sponsored in the House of Representatives by Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL).
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