In the wake of Cleveland-based TRW’s recent admissions that it has had numerous and significant “problems”, actually major screw-ups … reporting erroneous and personally harmful financial data on as many as 1,500 Vermont and New Hampshire citizens, Congress finally decided to act. In typical fashion, these actions will take the form of public hearings … and god knows how many corridor conversations, luncheons and closed-door office meetings with legions of well-paid industry lobbyists.
Meantime, in a desperate attempt to fend off potential Congressional restrictions on their industry, TRW has “magnanimously” announced it will begin providing anyone who asks with an annual copy of their credit report, without cost … an action it and its competitors have resisted for years.
Regretfully, this furor begs a fundamental question … whether any organization has the right to maintain and distribute records, credit histories and/or personal profiles on individuals without their specific consent.
As most details contained in these background reports are not public, they must necessarily be assembled from numerous sources of raw data from anonymous informants who have rarely, if ever, been authorized to release any such information by the individuals concerned.
Federal laws closely regulate what very limited types of information on individuals can be maintained and/or released by employers, schools and governmental agencies; clearly coming down firmly on the side of an individual’s right to personal privacy. Yet private sector parasites seem to have a free rein to collect, maintain and
peddle information on private citizens to anyone with the interest in, and/or cash to purchase it.
To compound this abomination, these companies have no effective obligation to guarantee the validity of such sensitive information other than conducting a “reasonable investigation” … which is rarely more than typing the collected data into a computer. When inaccurate information is (all too often) sent out, all the subsequent corrections, file notations and apologies in the world won’t undo the damage which has been done. It’s a little like telling a jury to “disregard” what it has just heard or seen.
Banks, financial institutions, credit card dispensers, retailers and countless other commercial entities which extend credit will contend that without their present unlimited access to such data, the issuance of credit to individuals will be a difficult, if not impossible task. If so, that’s their problem! Individuals seeking credit, will continue to have the option to allow TRW, Equifax, Trans Union or anyone else to assemble and maintain files on them and authorize its release data when requested.
However, for those people who wish to be totally ignored by this unwelcome and intrusive industry, they must have the absolute right to be allowed to do so … and not have to worry that some distant company and nameless computer operator is the steward of their most private financial and other personal information. If subsequent credit availability then eludes them, that becomes a consequence of their own actions with which they must cope.
A line must be drawn between the government’s and/or business’ alleged need for information on private individuals and the right to personal privacy to which every citizen is entitled.
The framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights understood this concept clearly. Theirs was a noble attempt to provide and to ensure maximum freedom and privacy for the individual. Unfortunately, during the intervening two centuries, government institutions and many intrusive segments of the private sector have slowly eroded many of those fundamental rights … including those relating to the rights to privacy.
James Madison noted, “there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual consent and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
Rather than parading hoards of witnesses through Congressional office buildings before doing nothing or, alternatively trying to micro-manage this industry, Congress should immediately return to the historic principals on which America was founded … and enact one simple law baring any company from accumulating and/or distributing
information concerning private individuals without their express written consent. To fail to do so would be but another example of this institution’s contempt for, and misunderstanding of the basic rights of its citizens.
The right to personal privacy greatly outweighs any and all economic interests … and must be vigorously protected!
