7 ms·

Presuming you do think it is a legitimate data breach then, why did you suggest that victims should lose their claim to having been caught up in it? Do you not

Presuming you do think it is a legitimate data breach then, why did you suggest that victims should lose their claim to having been caught up in it? Do you not think their (and probably your, if you're American) position of anxiety and their personal information being used nefariously is worthy of being made right? The data does not need to "surface" for it to have been used to steal someone's identity.

ksk 6y ago
I think the point OP was making that if the data hasn't surfaced, then you cannot confirm if a particular case of identity theft has been caused by the breach.
- akersten 6y ago
  That's a fair line of thought, but their comment was: data hasn't surfaced -> can't know where an identity theft came from -> Equifax petitioners lose their right to the settlement When the reality is: Equifax agreed to pay a settlement -> Equifax has not yet paid yet (and whether the material surfaces or not was not a stipulation of the settlement that they agreed to)
  - basch 6y ago
    >data hasn't surfaced What it really comes down to, is if "data hasn't surfaced" means "we dont know if the data was used" or if "data hasn't surfaced" is something you can prove hasnt happened. It's the difference between "we dont know" or "we know your identity theft wasnt related to this."
basch 6y ago
From a legal perspective, does providing incorrect information to a settlement somehow make your claim invalid? People were using the correlation of "I had an identity breach around this time, it must be causation" as part of their claim. If your identity is stolen by a different party, simultaneously, how do you legally have a right to use that against a different party? Did you read the article? The data likely hasnt been used yet, it was likely stolen by a government that is holding it for their own purposes, not using it for credit card theft.
- akersten 6y ago
  > "I had an identity breach around this time, it must be causation" as part of their claim. If your identity is stolen by a different party, simultaneously, how do you legally have a right to use that against a different party? I don't quite follow - do you mean "leaked" by a different party simultaneously? If that's the case, then yes, maybe it is hard to tell which party's data got scooped up by the Bad Guys. And you'd have a hard day in court against even a single actor leaking your data in the US, since it's not a strict liability crime. In this case it doesn't matter. I did read the article: it says Equifax agreed to a settlement and they need to pay out. They haven't paid out yet. Whatever happens after that agreement doesn't retroactively invalidate the settlement. A settlement is to make the whole thing go away, regardless of whether the breach turned into an identity disaster or a Nothingburger.
  - basch 6y ago
    The settlement is an independent event from validating claims to the settlement. >I don't quite follow - do you mean "leaked" by a different party simultaneously? Yes And, from my limited understanding of the case, the settlement is not set it stone. There are still appeals, the settlement has not been accepted universally. They apparently dont need to pay out while they still have their days in court. https://outline.com/zL6mgP https://outline.com/zL6mgP >Under the settlement terms, cash benefits cannot be paid, and credit monitoring, credit restoration and identity protection services remain on hold until the objectors’ appeals are resolved.
    - akersten 6y ago
      The appeals to the settlement you linked are about the appropriate compensation for the plaintiffs, not about whether claimants are eligible. I'm not sure how one would prove their identify theft was specifically due to Equifax's data breach even if the leaked data were available, so I don't understand that that could be a condition for a claim to be valid. My interpretation is that your claim is valid if you had data with Equifax and you subsequently spent time or money establishing credit monitoring or identity theft resolution. If there's more to it than that, and Equifax has arranged the settlement such that a claimant has to somehow prove the source of their identity theft was Equifax, then yes, I agree even more strongly with the "Equifax bad" narrative you decried upstream. That would be impossible to prove, even if the data did surface.

ksk 6y ago

I think the point OP was making that if the data hasn't surfaced, then you cannot confirm if a particular case of identity theft has been caused by the breach.

akersten 6y ago
That's a fair line of thought, but their comment was: data hasn't surfaced -> can't know where an identity theft came from -> Equifax petitioners lose their right to the settlement When the reality is: Equifax agreed to pay a settlement -> Equifax has not yet paid yet (and whether the material surfaces or not was not a stipulation of the settlement that they agreed to)
- basch 6y ago
  >data hasn't surfaced What it really comes down to, is if "data hasn't surfaced" means "we dont know if the data was used" or if "data hasn't surfaced" is something you can prove hasnt happened. It's the difference between "we dont know" or "we know your identity theft wasnt related to this."

basch 6y ago

From a legal perspective, does providing incorrect information to a settlement somehow make your claim invalid? People were using the correlation of "I had an identity breach around this time, it must be causation" as part of their claim. If your identity is stolen by a different party, simultaneously, how do you legally have a right to use that against a different party? Did you read the article? The data likely hasnt been used yet, it was likely stolen by a government that is holding it for their own purposes, not using it for credit card theft.

akersten 6y ago
> "I had an identity breach around this time, it must be causation" as part of their claim. If your identity is stolen by a different party, simultaneously, how do you legally have a right to use that against a different party? I don't quite follow - do you mean "leaked" by a different party simultaneously? If that's the case, then yes, maybe it is hard to tell which party's data got scooped up by the Bad Guys. And you'd have a hard day in court against even a single actor leaking your data in the US, since it's not a strict liability crime. In this case it doesn't matter. I did read the article: it says Equifax agreed to a settlement and they need to pay out. They haven't paid out yet. Whatever happens after that agreement doesn't retroactively invalidate the settlement. A settlement is to make the whole thing go away, regardless of whether the breach turned into an identity disaster or a Nothingburger.
- basch 6y ago
  The settlement is an independent event from validating claims to the settlement. >I don't quite follow - do you mean "leaked" by a different party simultaneously? Yes And, from my limited understanding of the case, the settlement is not set it stone. There are still appeals, the settlement has not been accepted universally. They apparently dont need to pay out while they still have their days in court. https://outline.com/zL6mgP https://outline.com/zL6mgP >Under the settlement terms, cash benefits cannot be paid, and credit monitoring, credit restoration and identity protection services remain on hold until the objectors’ appeals are resolved.
  - akersten 6y ago
    The appeals to the settlement you linked are about the appropriate compensation for the plaintiffs, not about whether claimants are eligible. I'm not sure how one would prove their identify theft was specifically due to Equifax's data breach even if the leaked data were available, so I don't understand that that could be a condition for a claim to be valid. My interpretation is that your claim is valid if you had data with Equifax and you subsequently spent time or money establishing credit monitoring or identity theft resolution. If there's more to it than that, and Equifax has arranged the settlement such that a claimant has to somehow prove the source of their identity theft was Equifax, then yes, I agree even more strongly with the "Equifax bad" narrative you decried upstream. That would be impossible to prove, even if the data did surface.