UPDATE: July 25, 2019, 3:04 p.m. EDT The website where affected consumers can file a claim and receive a portion of the Equifax settlement is now live: HERE
Equifax, one of the largest credit bureaus in the United States, agreed to pay up to $700 million for a 2017 data breachthat affected nearly 150 million customers.
The FTC announceddetails of the settlement on Monday. It would be the most ever paid by a company for a data breach, once it gets court approval.
According to Equifax, the company will put up to $425 million towards a consumer restitution fund in order to “pay for three-bureau credit monitoring for consumers whose information was impacted in the 2017 breach, actual out-of-pocket losses related to the breach, and other consumer benefits such as identity restoration services.”
A websitehas been set up by the FTC where those affectedcan get information on when and where to file a claim. Equifax is providing up to 10 years of free credit monitoring (a total of 18 years if you were a minor at the time of the data breach in May 2017) to all whose data was stolen in the breach. If a customer decides not to enroll because they already have credit monitoring, Equifax will pay them $125.
Equifax also agreed to pay up to $20,000 to each person who spent time or money resolving fraud or identity theft related issues due to the data breach. However, as CNBCpoints out, this might be difficult to prove as the data collected in the data breach has never been found online.
SEE ALSO: What you need to know about viral FaceApp's privacy policyThe credit bureau will pay $175 million to 48 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, in order to close investigations by 50 attorneys general. Equfax will also pay a $100 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In May 2017, hackers were able to access to names, addresses, birthdays, Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, credit card numbers, and other private information of millions of Equifax customers. The company discovered the breach in July and revealed the hack to the public that September. Security experts, as well as a report by the House Oversight Committee, have determined that the data breach was completely avoidableby Equifax.
While the record-breaking fine may sound expensive, as TechCrunch notes, it only makes up 20 percent of the $3.41 billion that Equifax made in 2018.
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