Over the past few years, a number of U.S. companies have\nsuffered serious data breaches. In the most recent data breach, 30 million\nFacebook accounts were compromised. Facebook estimates that hackers stole the\nnames, phone numbers, email addresses, search history, and device information\nof 14 million Facebook users. The attack occurred in late September 2018 and\nthe extent of damage is still being assessed. Though the tech giant seems to\nhave maintained control over the situation, this attack is merely a drop in the\nbucket.<\/p>\n\n\n
In 2017, hackers stole social security numbers, birth dates,\naddresses, driver\u2019s license number and credit card data from 143 million\nEquifax consumers. In 2016, Hackers infiltrated Uber\u2019s systems and stole the\nnames, email addresses, phone numbers, and driver\u2019s license numbers of 600,000\nUber drivers. In that same year, hackers stole 20 years of data from six adult\nwebsites consisting of names, email address, and passwords. In 2015, hackers stole\nthe names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and employment\nhistories of 78.8 million Anthem customers. And in 2014 alone, hackers stole a\nplethora of sensitive information from over 3 billion consumers and employees\nof Yahoo, Ebay, Target, OPM, Home Depot, Chase Bank, and Adobe.<\/p>\n\n\n
In an effort to curb these attacks, several states are\nbeginning to enact laws in an effort to protect consumer privacy. In pertinent\npart, these laws allow consumers to sue for damages they sustain as a result of\ndata breaches. These provisions are fueled in part by a realization that not\nall companies are forthcoming when they are hacked. For instance, in early 2018,\nGoogle was hacked and the personal information of its Google Plus users was\nstolen. However, due to the bad publicity surrounding the Facebook Cambridge\nAnalytica breach, Google opted to not inform its consumers of the intrusion and\ndetails of that breach only recently came to light. Be that as it may, Google\nis not alone on this island. Many companies deliberately decide to withhold\ninformation until a later date while others simply fail to enact the proper\nprotocols to deter and or detect intrusions. Advocates of the state laws argue\nthat the new legislation will combat this problem while ensuring consumer\nprivacy. <\/p>\n\n\n
NPR reports that several tech companies have begun to\nadvocate for the creation of federal privacy law despite the fact that such\ncompanies have traditionally been against such regulation. In light of the\nproblematic state laws, advocates argue that these tech companies are merely changing\ntheir tune so to ensure that they are never held liable for data breaches. Advocates\npoint to the fact that these companies want (a) the federal laws to pre-empt\nall state law (including the current and pending state laws which allow\nconsumers to sue companies for data breaches) and (b) the Federal Trade\nCommission to have sole enforcement powers over the laws. <\/p>\n\n\n
Advocates further argue that these companies only want the\nFTC to have sole enforcement because they know it will do a poor job of\nenforcing the law. Ariel Fox, policy counsel for Common Sense Media stated, \u201cI\ndon\u2019t know what the FTC can do besides put out guides or try to go after people\nfor violating statements that they\u2019ve made in their privacy policies\u201d.\nThe allegations raised against the FTC seem to\nbe justified. In 2011 the FTC accused Facebook of not living up to its own\nprivacy policies but took no disciplinary action against the company. Similarly,\nthe FTC has taken no action against Facebook in its involvement with the\nCambridge Analytica scandal. These allegations raise the question: are\ncompanies like Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Twitter and Google supporting federal\nlegislation to ensure consumer privacy or simply to prevent liability?\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the past few years, a number of U.S. companies have suffered serious data breaches. In the most recent data breach, 30 million Facebook accounts were compromised. Facebook estimates that hackers stole the names, phone numbers, email addresses, search history, and device information of 14 million Facebook users. The attack occurred in late September 2018 …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6900,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions\/6900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}