Hackers have all of your personal data
I used to joke that as often as the IRS and other government agencies have been hacked, you might as well write your social security number on your forehead.
Well, its not a joke anymore.
Recently it was revealed that the personal information of just about EVERYONE has been hacked and made available on the dark web.
A class action lawsuit filed in the US District court of Fort Lauderdale, FL states that a a hacking group stole the personal records of 2.9 Billion people from National Public Data (NPD).
2.9 Bilion people including all Americans, British and Canadians
National Public Data is a data aggregators that sells personal information to employers, private investigators, and others conducting background checks.
The hacked data includes each person’s full name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number, along with alternate names and birth dates
With your name, Social Security number, date of birth and mailing address, a fraudster could do a lot of damage. For example, they can create fake accounts in your name or potentially get access to your existing financial accounts.
It should be said, no one signs up willingly to give NPD their personal information. Most people have probably never heard of them.
National Pulblic Data is the criminal guilty of complete incompetence and negligence with our most sensitive data.
In my view, NPD should not only be sued as they are in this class action, the company should be disbanded and go bankrupt.
If you can’t keep data safe, you should have no right to store it
The real concern is how does NPD and these other data aggregators get our data? What rights do they have to get access to our data and keep it?
What rights do we have as citizens to demand that our data is not stored by these companies?
Why is our private and personal data being given to these companies who are constantly getting hacked.
This keeps happening, and we are numb to it. Something needs to be done
We need to demand that our private data not be stored by these companies we never gave explicit rights to do so in the first place, because as has been shown time and time again, its not a question of if, but when they will be hacked.