Congressional Democrats have revealed that data breaches linked to major data broker firms have resulted in over $20.9 billion in consumer losses due to identity theft. This revelation follows an investigation into data broker practices initiated by United States Senator Maggie Hassan after a report co-published by WIRED raised concerns about hidden opt-out pages.
The inquiry, triggered by findings that some data brokers obscured opt-out tools from search engines, unearthed vulnerabilities that scammers exploit to perpetrate personalized fraud using sensitive information like dates of birth, addresses, and Social Security numbers. While four companies responded to the outreach by enhancing opt-out access, one firm, Findem, failed to engage with the committee’s inquiries and neglected to remove the obfuscating code from its page. Findem’s unresponsiveness has raised concerns about its commitment to data privacy, particularly as records show a significant backlog in processing privacy requests from consumers and other entities.
Despite these revelations, IQVIA, 6sense, and Comscore have yet to comment on the matter, while Telesign requires press inquiries to consent to marketing communications via an online form.
Source: WIRED