Since all those companies can plausibly point to someone else, the victim pays! Which is just how they like it — privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
What would actually get creditors to stop using social security numbers is if the SSN's utility as a proxy for creditworthiness drops. But that won't happen, even with many more breaches, because individual consumers need to do everything they can to keep their credit scores up.
> Still, we should demand it.
Yep. The market will not drive this. It will have to be consumers, speaking collectively through the government, imposing regulations.
Since all those companies can plausibly point to someone else, the victim pays! Which is just how they like it — privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
What would actually get creditors to stop using social security numbers is if the SSN's utility as a proxy for creditworthiness drops. But that won't happen, even with many more breaches, because individual consumers need to do everything they can to keep their credit scores up.
> Still, we should demand it.
Yep. The market will not drive this. It will have to be consumers, speaking collectively through the government, imposing regulations.