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While I certainly agree in spirit, Equifax is, as has been said elsewhere, unfortunately too big to fail. Too much infrastructure has been built around it. So,

While I certainly agree in spirit, Equifax is, as has been said elsewhere, unfortunately too big to fail. Too much infrastructure has been built around it. So, instead of dissolution, I propose two very reasonable remedies that I would consider the absolute minimum in concert with whatever fines and sanctions may be levied: 1. Credit freezes/unfreezes must be offered free in perpetuity. “They cost us money to perform” is not a remotely appropriate objection - offering this for free should be a basic cost of doing business in the credit reporting industry. 2. Affected individuals (everyone, basically) must be granted a minimum of 10 years of credit monitoring following the breach. One year is a free sample you get with a coupon code from a podcast. Furthermore, the service must not auto-renew at the end of the term: send users a security report and let them decide if they want to opt-in to continued monitoring after the term ends.

otakucode 9y ago
Why 10 years? I mean, I don't see how one could defend any term shorter than the term of the validity and danger of the information stolen. I won't get a new SSN in 10 years. I won't get a new name. All the information will persist and still be useful. I'm personally in a worse position as my information was part of the OPM breach years ago and even images of my fingerprints are in the wild. And I got 18 months of free credit monitoring out of it. When a charge of more than $100 is made on my credit card, I get a text message instantly. When I log into my banks web system, I get a text message instantly. I was able to set those things up. I don't see why it would be unreasonable to have a similar thing set up so that I could be alerted every single time my credit history is queried with information about who is querying it for what purpose, ideally with the ability to block it by replying to the text message.
- edoceo 9y ago
  How do you get a text message when crims setup a new credit account in your name? That's what the 10yr monitoring is for?

otakucode 9y ago

Why 10 years? I mean, I don't see how one could defend any term shorter than the term of the validity and danger of the information stolen. I won't get a new SSN in 10 years. I won't get a new name. All the information will persist and still be useful. I'm personally in a worse position as my information was part of the OPM breach years ago and even images of my fingerprints are in the wild. And I got 18 months of free credit monitoring out of it. When a charge of more than $100 is made on my credit card, I get a text message instantly. When I log into my banks web system, I get a text message instantly. I was able to set those things up. I don't see why it would be unreasonable to have a similar thing set up so that I could be alerted every single time my credit history is queried with information about who is querying it for what purpose, ideally with the ability to block it by replying to the text message.

edoceo 9y ago
How do you get a text message when crims setup a new credit account in your name? That's what the 10yr monitoring is for?