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Comment by 29athrowaway | Hacker News Reader

The Equifax breach was worse.

This. Equifax exposed 147 million identities. They should not exist today, but somehow that resulted in ‘free services’ for us instead.

As was pointed out earlier, that just updated their database.

Not only are we the product, but we can’t opt out. This industry is gross

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/equifax-data-breach-...

Edit: fixed autocorrect’s incorrect fix of Equifax name

Why can't people opt-out? Aren't there privacy laws that allow people control of their data? For instance, so that they can request to have a copy of all the data a given corporation has on them and to have them delete it as well?

To delete all the data, you'd be effectively be opting out of being able to get loans, credit cards, rentals, and perhaps at least some jobs. This probably isn't practical for a lot of people.

Disclosure: I currently contribute in part at a fintech, thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is somewhat true, but because weight is given to credit reporting data that shouldn’t be. Past performance is not entirely indicative of future performance. Several large commercial banks are moving away from FICO because of this, and cashflow underwriting is normalizing (with you being underwritten based on actual fiat flowing through your deposit account versus credit payment history). This is also beneficial to folks with a “thin file”, or not a lot of credit history.

https://helloskip.com/blog/is-the-fico-credit-score-going-aw...

https://www.crai.com/insights-events/publications/use-cash-f...

I'm OK with banks requesting access from a database controlled by a regulated public institution; not with a random corporation (like Experian) collecting data from people and selling it to banks.

not in the US. GDPR gives those protections, but the US doesn't have equivalent ones.

GDPR excludes some financial data. So I don’t know about Experian, but I don’t think you can opt out of your bank holding data even after you close your account. For example, Transferwise asked me to provide a copy of my passport or driving license. I asked why they keep it for 10 years after they identify me, and they pointed out to some extensive regulation (which I believe trumps the GDPR).

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