Monday, June 19, 2006

They need to Pay More

Everyone has heard about ID theft. A day does not go by that I don't read about some bank who has misplaced five million accounts of financial data. But that's okay, they say. They will pay for a year's worth of protection while John Q Public tries to get his or her life back.

Well, this is not okay. I have several solutions for this problem.
1. For each account which is lost, there will be a $100,000.00 fine. Of course the banks will say the account is not really lost, just the information which we entrusted to them has been, well misplaced. Imagine if there was a loss of 26 million accounts? Oops, there was one but some group filed suit against the government and wants to fine the agency, $1000.00 per loss. A thousand dollar fine is just a slap on the wrist. $100,000.00 per is a head turner.
2. Not only should the person who was stupid enough to take the laptop home without encrypting the files but the person who hired the person, should have their social security numbers put out on the web.
3. If the firm/bank does not tell their accounts about the screw up within 24 hours, the CEO and the entire board of directors will loose all their retirement packages. And any investments which they have, with any family members, will be wiped off the face of the earth.
Well, that about covers it.
Actually, there is something else we can do. Tell Congress to pass better laws, now. Later is not an option. Well, later is something Congress does and they do it very well.
Do you think if we could get them(Congress) all into a room and tell them that if they don't pass better consumer Privacy and Identity Protection before they leave, all of their consumer data would be exposed, do you think they would do something?
I'm Waiting!