Morgan Chalfant reports:
Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are pressing a government watchdog to further investigate whether existing credit monitoring services do enough to protect consumers affected by data breaches.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in March on identity theft services offered by the federal government and private companies to consumers who have had their information exposed. While the watchdog concluded that services like credit monitoring offer some benefits, auditors said that they are “limited” in preventing some types of fraud.
Read more on The Hill.
Yes, this is a good question to pursue, and of course, some of us having been blogging about this, advocating about this, and pulling our hair out about this for years now. But is this the year and the administration that will do something about it? It’s unlikely, given the pro-business executive branch and the other legislative priorities. So there may be a hearing or two at best, but I don’t expect to see meaningful change on this. I’d love to be pleasantly surprised, though. Go on. Surprise me pleasantly, Congress.