From: WHICH-50
Bhargav Mitra and Robert McCausland
Google might be in trouble for collecting the personal data of its users, but many companies have a growing incentive to rid their hands of the data that users entrust them with. This is because of growing costs of holding onto it.
A major cause is the rising number of cyber attacks where hackers steal the identity information held by companies, often to sell them on to various black markets. Take the recent example of US giant Equifax, one of the top three companies in the consumer credit reporting industry. It chalked up another 2.5m identity-theft casualties to its existing toll of 143m in October 2017. The firm has suffered a steady stream of identity information loss following a cyber-attack that took place in May this year, where hackers capitalised on weaknesses in its software.
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