, Columnist
The Equifax Hack Started the Wrong Conversation
We can’t own our data, so let's control what can be done with it.
It knows where you've been.
Photographer: John Taggart/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The Equifax hack has ignited the wrong conversation about the sanctity of our personal information. Instead of asking who owns it, we should focus on what companies and governments are allowed to do with it.
People are rightly shocked by the theft of data on some 145 million Americans. They reasonably wonder why any company should be allowed to amass so much information about them without their permission. But preventing others from gaining access to our data is all but impossible, and not necessarily desirable. Sharing is mostly good, because it means we can all hold valuable truths. The potential dangers depend largely on how we answer a different question: What important decisions can our data be used to make?