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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

How does Equifax, a private company, have the rights to access my personal data in the first place? Who exactly is giving it to them without my explicit consent, and why?

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You do give your consent. Everytime you deal with a financial, or credit issuing institution.

Of course, effectively, you don't have a choice - you need those financial institutions to live a normal life. Equifax (and other bureaus) are coercive monopolies.

I hope that this story will bring down the hammer on their heads - not just Equifax, all of them.

Every financial institution you deal with gives them your info, and they do it so collectively they all have lower risk on loans. I suspect if this wasn't in place, we'd be paying significantly higher interest rates on loans.

You don't own your own data, unfortunately. At least not in the US.

I mean...you consent when you hand your details over to a financial institution. How credit reporting agencies end up with your information is very straight-forward. Save the alarmist rhetoric for the headlines.

> “There’s nothing in any statute or anything else that allows you to ask Equifax to remove your data or have all your data disappear if you say you no longer trust it,” said John Ulzheimer, a consumer credit expert

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/technology/seriously-equi...

That sounds to me like I don't own my own data.

The companies on the other side of your transactions.

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