Just happened to stumble on this today. Caveat: It’s possible that this is an instance of “ambulance chasing” attorneys so read the information with caution and a grain of salt. Alleging something doesn’t mean it’s true.
" Attorneys working with ClassAction.org suspect that Gen Digital Inc., the company behind Norton and formerly known as NortonLifeLock Inc., may be illegally sharing consumers’ data and are now investigating possible legal action. Specifically, they believe Norton may be using an online tracking tool that secretly collects information about certain users as they navigate its websites and apps and sends this data to marketing company Quantum Metric without consent. " Norton Sharing Customer Data? | Wiretapping, Privacy Law | Take Action
Maybe related? Taking this with a grain of salt and dexterity. Many companies have changed their policies to arbitration and for reasons only they know what for. That being a given, I can search for something on mobile and then see ads for it elsewhere with such things as “related to your recent searches or shopping”. Here in the US we have to get dead serious about having our own GDPR and enforcing it. Its that simple.
Agree 100%. I hope I’m wrong but my impression is that people have given up in the face of numerous security breaches across all sectors, including healthcare that’s been leaking like a sieve. A few of my acquaintances who are concerned about privacy nevertheless feel that any effort is like closing the barn door after the horses have fled. I’m not of that opinion but maybe I’m delusional.
Just between you, me and the brick wall in front of us. Government should go back at least 10 years or maybe farther to the data breach of OPM that occurred. OPM has records on all former and current federal employees/retirees as well as military retirees. In 2005 OPM was breached, my letter stated the data taken on me was everything they had, except, fingerprints which ALL military enlistees my have on file with the FBI at the time of enlistment. For me that is where my nightmare began. My point is, go back to that year and as a collective. Hold every entity that has had a breach collectively accountable for. Costs related to SSN numbers being replaced for every American citizen. Not just some credit monitoring BS for a year. Credit Bureaus? They’re a joke, throw their butts into the fray as well. ALL companies, collectively, should bear the cost of making this right again. Guess what. Hell gets air conditioning and Satan gets saved before that happens.
I remember the OPM breach. That was a massive one. Exposed so much, including sensitive info on personnel with security clearances. And yet here we are almost 10 years and little accomplished.
I’ve been beating this drum a long time. Got hopeful a couple of times over the many years. Most recently last year’s The American Privacy Rights Act co-sponsored by one of the senators from my state Committee Chairs Rodgers, Cantwell Unveil Historic Draft Comprehensive Data Privacy Legislation) but concessions the Republicans wanted ended up weakening privacy protection to the point privacy advocates walked away from supporting it and the measure died.
I’m not optimistic about seeing federal legislation anytime soon. Time may be better spent working at the state level. It’s piecemeal, messy and leaves big gaps but better that than nothing. I’m directing my efforts to getting my state to enact protections similar to California. I live in Microsoft and Amazon country and our state privacy laws are embarrassing. Not sure if I’m just whistling in the wind but am focused on taking part in changing that.
As for the credit bureaus, they’re the source of so many breaches. Here’s just a smattering of Experion’s weaknesses (some ongoing). Experian – Krebs on Security And we’re relying on these folks for credit monitoring (which is indeed closing the barn door after all the animals fled. It’s like coming home finding you’ve been burglarized, calling the police and having them confirm that, yup, you’ve been burglarized.) And our federal electeds can’t fix even address these easily correctable security holes at the credit bureaus.
To think that our feds are now up against AI? One example. Last fall there was this. How 2 Students Used The Meta Ray-Bans To Access Personal Information
An investigation by two Harvard students went viral Friday as they demonstrated how they used Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses to access the personal information of people on Harvard’s campus—including name, age, home address and phone number—raising significant security concerns about facial recognition and artificial intelligence technologies.
As you said, a snowball’s chance in hell. But if the good citizens of this country give up, even if the odds are overwhelming, then we don’t have the right to complain. I hope to be a squeaky wheel till the end of my days…a hamster on the wheel til the end.