Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a new bill to stop Equifax and other credit reporting agencies from exploiting consumers.
The Freedom from Equifax Exploitation (FREE) Act will amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act, improve fraud alert procedures and provide free access to credit freezes, according to the Democratic senator from Massachusetts.
Under the proposed bill, consumers will have control over their credit and personal information. Credit reporting agencies will no longer profit from consumers’ personal data during a freeze.
The senator proposed the legislation following the data breach on the systems of Equifax, which is considered “one of the largest risks to personally sensitive information in recent years.”
Equifax disclosed the data breach last week. According to the credit reporting agency, the around 143 million U.S. consumers were affected by the incident, which happened happened in mid May to July 2017.
Hackers stole consumers’ Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses based on its investigation. The company’s investigators did not find any evidence that the hackers accessed its core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases.
