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Should Companies Share Criminal Blame In ID Theft?
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia criticizes the lack of criminal charges for corporate negligence in data breaches in the wake of last week's Best Western breach, which exposed the personal data of 8 million customers. 'The responsibilities attached to retaining sensitive personal identity information should include criminal charges against the company responsible for a leak, in addition to the party that receives the information,' Venezia writes. 'Until the penalties for giving away sensitive information in this manner include heavy fines and possibly even jail time for those responsible for securing that information, we'll see this problem occur again and again.' As data security lawyer Thomas J. Smedinghoff writes, data security law is already shifting the blame for data breaches onto IT, thanks to an emerging framework of complex regulations that could result in grave legal consequences should your organization suffer a breach. To date, however, IT's duty to provide security and its duty to disclose data breaches does not include criminal prosecution. Yet, with much of the data security framework being shaped by 'IT negligence' court cases over 'reasonable' security, that could very well be put to the test some day in court." It's a slippery slope to be sure, but where should the buck stop?
This would be a great civil class action case, but criminal? The slope is quite slippery, and like previous posters have said, the cops don't do much when it comes to non-violent, non-domestic, non-street crimes.
Of course, some would argue that the banks and lenders behind the whole sub-prime mortgage crisis deserve to be criminally punished for causing a global recession and for the number of lives they've destroyed.
If your going to store my private data without my expressed permission. In other words I didn't specifically request it (as opposed to having it thrown in as a caveat on some user agreement). Then you are responsible for all mishaps that may be incurred by your actions.
If I ask you to save my data then I accept that I am giving permission to said company as is. In other words it now is my responsibility to look over all disclosures.
The inherent problem however is there is no means of specifically identifying a person. first and last name no longer work. you can assign them a unique code but most people get tired of bringing around and ID card for every business they do business with. Thus you are forced to use a.) a phone number which is subject to change, social security ID, or credit card number.
So though I do believe they should be held responsible for negligence and saving information without expressed permission. I do think the credit industry as a whole is responsible. There needs to be a fixed ID system which is separate from the credit system (as in credit score) and governmental ID systems.
This one ID bullshit needs to stop. Each person should have a superficial ID which can be changed at request. A credit ID which requires in person transactions (loan etc) a government ID and a health care ID. all of which should be maintained by different independent agencies.
Exactly right. Nobody.
At the very least, they should be held civilly liable. We should be suing every last one of these MFing companies that hand our personal data over to criminals to the fullest extent provided by law. There should be statutes on the books allowing for statutory damages to be awarded when our personal data is negligently handled.
And where are the amulance chasers in all this? Why aren't there ads on my TV for shysters who will take on these cases?
Follow the money... who's getting paid? The politicians. Barack Obama, John McCain...doesn't matter who you vote for, because they both have their hands in the same pockets!
I've got a better idea. Ban the collection of personal information beyond the time required for the transaction. I don't but it that companies somehow need to store all this info on people especially years after the transaction has occurred. If you are going to be light on them when they lose it, then be heavy on what they can keep.
Well what about long-term services like Life Insurance? A service like that would need to keep your Name, Birthday, Social Security Number, address, next of kin, etc until you died and someone collected. And what about Banks and Loan offices?
A friend of mine got a notice from his life insurance firm saying that a laptop was stolen that probably had his records on it. Why it would be on a flippin LAPTOP I have no idea, something like that should be a server only accessible from the company's encrypted network (but I digress).
I could also see the benefit of some stores keeping some light data on you (name, address, phone) so they can contact you but I think they should get rid of your credit card info after X days/weeks.
In all, it's a mixed bag of blame. Personally I think the government and law enforcement should take Identify Theft a lot more seriously, with major penalties against these fraudulent jerks.
Leaked data, by itself, isn't a crime in this regard. No harm comes to anyone until someone with criminal intent actually does something to it. Not counting, of course, the harm of feeling appropriately uneasy as you wonder if/when someone will do something with it following a leak - but I'm not sure that sort of anxiety rises to the level of crime on the part of the hotel chain... you could have the same anxiety about whether or not someone holding your data will at some point have a leak that hasn't even happened yet, and likely never will.
There's a reason that someone who sues McDonalds over the hot coffee she dumps in her own lap doesn't ask a DA to go after them criminally. Likewise with slipping on a wet restroom floor that doesn't have one of those "caution" signs put up by the maintenance crew. Being bad (or even, unlucky) at your job could well be grounds for a civil suit, but it isn't usually - and shouldn't usually - be considered an actual crime. That's pretty dangerous stuff, there.
When some wackadoo in full-on tinfoil hat mode brings a gun or a knife to work and kills the PHB he's hated for years, and is now convinced is working for Alien Overlords... is the employer who didn't see that coming an accessory to the crime that was committed, for having failed to prevent it?
If data is leaked, and no crime (based on the use of that data) is ever committed, and the laptop gets recovered with no expectation of it having been compromised... did a crime take place, not counting the person who ripped off the laptop from an employee's luggage? Is the employer actually a criminal because that happened? The opportunities for Really Bad Precedents here are vasty.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I mean, I know HIPPA takes care of issues with respect to people's medical records, but, I don't think that there are actually any laws against the release of people's data. If there were, there would be a whole lot less of companies out there that held and traded in such information.
It is a crime to break into a computer to gather this data. But, I don't think at this point, in the US it is a crime to lose it.
If I happened to have a database of people's information, and I want to freely publish it, I don't actually think there is a statute against me doing that.
If there is, can someone cite it or give links on this?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think there is a way to go about it that would work.
The first thing that would have to be done is that we would need some guidelines as to what a "reasonable" level of security is, and even that might be scaled based on the type of information stored. This should then be re-evaluated yearly by a commission of qualified IT managers from industry. There are other limitations which should be placed on the commission, but that's outside the scope of this uninformed rant.
Just as an example:
Storing customer names and addresses - Database encryption and basic perimeter security may be considered reasonable. Losing data and not being there should result in fines and maybe some jail time.
Storing Credit Card info - Same as above, but add backup encryption, laptop hard-disk encryption, internal firewall for DB servers and source code audit on all applications with DB connections. Failure to comply and losing data would be hefty fines, jail time for those responsible for the systems, and civil liability to those people affected.
Storing Social Security Numbers - All the above, but damages increase substantially, as does jail time, with c-level execs getting in on the PMITA action. And civil liability is increased to "the affected customers now own your ass" level.
The problem, of course, is that it would be the government doing it, so they would invariably screw it up.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
A friend of mine got a notice from his life insurance firm saying that a laptop was stolen that probably had his records on it. Why it would be on a flippin LAPTOP I have no idea, something like that should be a server only accessible from the company's encrypted network (but I digress).
$10 says someone was either creating top-line reports or other such nonsense based on spreadsheets full of live data, and they brought it home/outside of the office to continue working on it past business hours.
I can't even tell you how many times I've seen people in insurance companies take live data home with them so they can whip up statistical reporting. People don't follow IT protocol when it becomes inconvenient for them to do so. (i.e. staying late at the office vs going home & working there.)
The Economist ran a report pointing out that companies had whined at length about how Sarbanes-Oxley was crippling their business, but they did an investigation and found that the companies in question were doing as well as before or better.
(The Economist is absolutely gung-ho to the point of stupidity about free markets, so I don't think they have some sort of corporate agenda in saying so.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Actually wrong.
The first step is to financially ruin and have real "pound me in the ass" prison terms for the executive staff that cut the IT departments budget to increase security.
If the CEO has the fear of being raped by bubba while the CTO is told "you're next pretty boy" They will quit spending money on their company BMW's and office remodels and actually give the IT departments the funding they need to have the staff and hardware to do their FUCKING job.
Do I seem a bit jaded?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.