On Twitter

About this page and the author

The author of this blog, David T.S. Fraser, is a Canadian privacy lawyer who practices with the firm of McInnes Cooper. He is the author of the Physicians' Privacy Manual. He has a national and international practice advising corporations and individuals on matters related to Canadian privacy laws.

For full contact information and a brief bio, please see David's profile.

Please note that I am only able to provide legal advice to clients. I am not able to provide free legal advice. Any unsolicited information sent to David Fraser cannot be considered to be solicitor-client privileged.

Privacy Calendar

Links

RSS FEED for this site

Blogs I Follow

Small Print

The views expressed herein are solely the author's and should not be attributed to his employer or clients. Any postings on legal issues are provided as a public service, and do not constitute solicitation or provision of legal advice. The author makes no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained herein or linked to. Nothing herein should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel.

This web site is presented for informational purposes only. These materials do not constitute legal advice and do not create a solicitor-client relationship between you and David T.S. Fraser. If you are seeking specific advice related to Canadian privacy law or PIPEDA, contact the author, David T.S. Fraser.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Responding to the Merlin breach

Yesterday, I posted about an incident involving Merlin Information Services (Incident: Another data aggregator provides personal information to impostors). Adam Shostack at Emergent Chaos picked up on the posting and wrote about it on his blog (Emergent Chaos: Merlin Information Systems, 9,000, Lying customers). He also points to the Press Room of Merlin Information Services, which is an interesting read. The company appears to be very open about the incident and is offering each affected consumer with one year of credit watching services and $50,000 of identity theft insurance. Of course they are strengthening their customer verification process to prevent people from fraudulently opening accounts with them, it's closing the barn door a tad too late.

While nobody would want to be one of the 9,000 affected people, the company's response may be the best that one can expect.

Labels: identity theft, information breaches

5/16/2005 05:21:00 PM :: (1 comments) :: Backlinks

Comments:

I'm not sure that you're on the mark with your barn door analogy. Only one of Merlin Information's responses to their data theft is to tighten their screening, which any responsible company would try to do in this situation. The problems these data compromises point to is integral with our information based world, and not merely the failure of companies to act. See more at my posting, http://yourpinews.blogspot.com/2005/05/merlin-information-hit-by-data-theft.html

# posted by