Has anyone been able to show damages? I get the fury at Equifax. I personally refuse to unfreeze their reports. But it’s looking increasingly like a leak that was shocking but moderately harmful at worst.
We aren't even told when a government entity looks at and uses our private information. How in the world would we know when a criminal does, and how would we be able to say they looked at that specific leak instead of one of the other 10 possible sources of my leaked private information?
Maybe it is time to pool the damages of all identity thefts together, (about 56 billion in 2021) and split the bill (+ maintenance and administrative costs for managing the money) across all businesses that have leaked private data. That money could be used as a resource to all identity thefts victims to be made whole.
You can’t pool something you haven’t measured. This is a genuine question. I had thought we’d have demonstrated liability by now.
Just like in an assault/homicide case, if a victim has a heart attack and dies soon after you assaulted them, you can't prove that the attack led to the heart attack. Could just be bad timing. But most courts and juries would likely find the assaulter guilty to some extent.
This isn’t how civil damages work in any jurisdiction.
> like in an assault/homicide case
Apples and oranges. If the only way we can finger Equifax is by equating their actions to violent crimes, there is no case. That is increasingly my conclusion. These leaks have little to no actual cost.
How do propose liability could be demonstrated with something like this? Do you expect hackers and fraudsters to cite their sources when they are defrauding someone?
Following the Equifax breach, I experienced yearly identity theft using the combination of that name and my childhood address. Unless the teller who opened my original account has taken up a life of fraud and state hopping, Equifax is the likeliest culprit.