Autopsy of a disaster: Thoughts on the Equifax debacle

The Equifax debacle demonstrate the danger lurking into a very outdated, non-customer friendly and absolutely not transparent approach to data. The market is sanctioning Equifax before the regulators hopefully do the same in Europe at least and the consumers launch legal actions possibly class actions as it is now possible in the EU. 

That such a big and important player did not care one bit about efficiently protecting user data, did not understand these data belong to the users not to them, that the management seem to have revelled into frankly shocking behaviours and that the company reacted so badly to the breach, took so much time to adequately respond and compounded the disaster lurking by trying to have the consumers paying to protect their data is absolutely shocking. The revenue loss is only the start. 

My point is that what happened with Equifax cavalier approach of data protection clearly belongs to the past.

Many incumbent market players and even more startups understand Data Protection is not just a constraint but an opportunity to build a better/refreshed relationship with consumers/customers. That transparency and proactivity in addressing and managing the associated risks are commercial opportunities. Market players need to remember that personal data belong/are owned by the data subject. They only have a right of access and use granted to them, not ownership of the data. 

Some really exciting, important and positive things are happening in the data economy, in fintech and insurtech. The Equifax disaster is clearly not one of those. Thankfully, the behaviours from innovators and to be fair of many major incumbent players much improved with regard to data protection and privacy as they understand the need for proactive, transparent commercial actions as well as compliance.

Many incumbent market players and even more startups understand Data Protection is not just a constraint but an opportunity to build a better/refreshed relationship with consumers/customers. That transparency and proactivity in addressing and managing the associated risks are commercial opportunities. Market players need to remember that personal data belong/are owned by the data subject. They only have a right of access and use granted to them, not ownership of the data. 

Some really exciting, important and positive things are happening in the data economy, in fintech and insurtech. The Equifax disaster is clearly not one of those. Thankfully, the behaviours from innovators and to be fair of many major incumbent players much improved with regard to data protection and privacy as they understand the need for proactive, transparent commercial actions as well as compliance.

Finally, it shows why the General Data Protection Regulation and the European data protection regime is so important and ultimately positive. It is making the potential impacts of whatever Bilateral Trade Agreements Britain would negotiate with the US slightly worrying as it could lead to a weakening of the UK data protection regime. Another of the potentially highly negative Brexit impacts...