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Maybe this has something to do with it.
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Nofsdad


Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 3:02 pm    Post subject: Maybe this has something to do with it.  

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0506180011jun18,1,5703630.story?coll=chi-business-hed
Quote:
Information technology chiefs across corporate America are circling the wagons over leakage of personal information related to employees and customers.

"Businesses are feeling squeezed," said Steven Adler, a data governance guru with IBM Corp. "California now requires that businesses inform customers when there's a data theft, and other states are passing laws."

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a number of bills Thursday that require businesses to notify consumers if their confidential computerized records are stolen, lost or otherwise breached.

The legislation, only the second in the nation, is modeled on the California law that has been widely credited for exposing how extensive computer data breaches have become.

I wonder if the increasing number of data thefts and other database security breaches have anything to do with the emphasis on cost cutting as the sole source of "profit" by the hedge funds and holding companies that seem to have taken over the economy these days.

One of the major factors in these cost cuts has been the elimination of entire inhouse IT technology and services divisions and the outsourcing of IT to the cheapest offshore bidder. (What was the first virtually entire Hoffman division to get the axe?) One of the ways in which these outside firms are able to get these low bid contracts is by engaging in heavy cost cutting themselves and since security is the most difficult and expensive part of any IT operation, guess where the major portion of those cost cuts are going to come from?

We need a law that allows consumers, individually or as a class, to sue institutions and companies that allow their personal and private information to become common knowledge through non-existent or at best slipshod IT practices.
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sleK
Administrator

Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1010
Location: over yonder
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 12:35 am    Post subject:  

Quote:
We need a law that allows consumers, individually or as a class, to sue institutions and companies that allow their personal and private information to become common knowledge through non-existent or at best slipshod IT practices.


How about a law that forbids companies and non-essential institutions from even having your personal information?

Two birds, one stone. Your personal information stays personal and companies will be forced to innovate (rather than cater to the lowest common denominator) in order to generate profit.
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Nofsdad


Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7090
Location: Central CA
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:15 am    Post subject:  

That would force institutions like banks to have to start dealing with you face to face again. Never happen.
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sleK
Administrator

Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 1010
Location: over yonder
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:28 am    Post subject:  

Well, banks would be the exception rather than the rule. Some amount of personal information is sorta necessary in that instance. Yet, at the same time, better governance over what banks do with that information would be welcome.
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