EPIC - Home Depot Data Breach Exposes Millions of Credit Card Records

A data breach at Home Depot might have exposed millions of consumers' credit card records, according to an announcement from Home Depot's corporate center. "We're looking into some unusual activity that might indicate a possible payment data breach," the announcement read, "If we confirm a breach has occurred, we will make sure our customers are notified immediately." In the last year, 70 million Target customers, 33 million Adobe users, 4.6 million Snapchat users, and potentially all 148 million eBay users had their personal information exposed by database breaches. In May of this year, the President's science advisors surprisingly found little risk in the massive collection of personal data by companies. However, a recent FTC report on data brokers warned that "collecting and storing large amounts of data not only increases the risk of a data breach or other unauthorized access but also increases the potential harm that could be caused." EPIC has urged the White House to enact the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and to promote Privacy Enhancing Techniques that minimize or eliminate the collection of personally identifiable information. For more information, see EPIC: Big Data and the Future of Privacy, and EPIC: Identity Theft.

September 4, 2014| Share: