I’d argue there’s even more resting on Judge Thrash’s shoulders, including whether companies can get away with abusing our data in the future. “It’s becoming cheaper to say sorry after the fact than to obey the law in the first place,” he told me. To recap: Equifax is avoiding accountability by offloading millions of its users’ data to another party with a shoddy history of data security practices, which will then profit from the services. Should Judge Thrash decide to approve the settlement (and if subsequent appeals are lost), three things are likely to happen. For data brokers, the Equifax lesson would be stark: Failing to invest in information security is not an irresponsible business decision.

Source: New York Times November 26, 2019 19:52 UTC