The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Personal information lost

Hi

I have been informed by a recruiting agency that a server that contained my personal information and others(including name, resume, prev employer name, social security number, etc) has been stolen. They have advised me to contact credit beaurue, etc.

Any legal recommendation? should i sue these bas*^!@#%?

Worried soul
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

As far as i know, there's not much you can do in the United States. In fact, California's the only state that even obligates a company to tell you when it allows your personal data to be stolen.

Mike Schiraldi
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Best resource for this...

http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/

Code Monkey
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I think we'll see a lot more of this sort of problem from all sorts of companies. On their part: they must pass more strigent requirements to bulk up the toughness of their security infrastructures; on our part: we should be more wary than ever before about giving away personal info or relying on credit cards too much.

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

My former dentist office was broken into and all the records stolen. I would have never found out except that I kept pestering them for my records and they finally fessed up. This was very annoying to me. There needs to be some responsibility defined for who takes the heat. I don't mean lawsuits, but that the company takes the time to notify potential victims. Perhaps this would be covered in insurance?

m
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Dear Worried Soul,
The bastards are the guys that broke into the office and stole the server. I don't think you need to sue them; the district attorney can be trusted to do that for you, though he probably doesn't have much more of a chance of locating them than you do.

Your post, and that of the guy who talks about them "allowing" the theft of their server will no doubt be of interest to anthropologists in the future. I have no doubt that if present American attitudes had been in place at the time the West was won, we would see the intrepid settlers, surrounded by Red Indians, desperately trying to smuggle John Wayne through the blockade so he could get to a Philadelphia lawyer to sue the manufacturers of the covered wagons.

Or, as was said of Tony Blair when the sacked Ron Davies, the minister who was mugged on Hampstead Heath, "Tough on crime, tough on the victims of crime!"

Stephen Jones
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Why would a recruiting agency need your social security number?

anon
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

You'll notice most companies ask you for much more info than they really need.

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Stephen

I can't get what you're talking about. My question is can I sue the recruiting agency or not?

According to their website, they assure the security of the personal information but clearly they have failed.

Can i sue them?

Worried soul
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

you can sue anyone at anytime, for any reason. so if you think you can win, why not give it a go? at the very least, you could scare them into paying you a few thousand dollars. it is the american way.

...
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

People have been sued for small things such as the one quoted here

http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/01/28/double.click.lawsuit.idg/

There is nothing to prevent you from suing them. Its a different matter whether such actions will yield useful results.

Being helpful
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Sure, you can sue. But you'll likely lose, particularly if
it actually was stolen by a burglar who robbed the place.
You'll have a better case if it was stolen by an insider
(disgruntled employee, etc).

Whether you sue or not has nothing to do with you
needing to call the credit bureaus and putting your
credit on FraudWatch. Also, you should get a current
credit report on yourself ASAP to make sure no new
credit cards have been opened in your name. Now that
your info is floating about in the ether, you'll have to
deal with it ASAP whether you sue them or not.

foobarista
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

> Any legal recommendation? should i sue these bas*^!
> @#%?

Yes sue, And something bad happens to you, hopefully the people inconvienienced by your misfortune also sue you, and then maybe somone can sue them.

Maybe we can completely remove the ideas of misfortune, luck and personal responsibility and replace them with a legal actions.

1 - bad things happening does not mean negligence.

If you want organisations to maintain information in a state where there is a 0.0000001% chance of it being stolen/lost or else be considered negligent then we will all pay the price for that. The price being medical care we can't afford, educational standards that fail our children, etc etc

2 - negligence does not mean compensation

If you want to be recompensed for all unfairness visited upon you shouldnt you also be paying somone for those fortunate events in your life. And buddy, if we evened out fortune in this big ole world you wouldnt be better off, you would be much worse of, half of that western education, nutrition, free time, life expectancy etc etc would be gone.

3 - stop being so american and call who you need to call and stop complaining.

braid_ged
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

"stop being so American" combined with "stop complaining".

Now that's one of the best flames I've heard in a while, ass.

EAW
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

>Now that's one of the best flames I've heard in a while, >ass.

Calling me an ass on a forum specifically populated by people in the professional field in which I work.

OK guys, advice on legal action please.

I may be an ass but somone responding to an unfortunate event, but it the result of negligence or not, with the immediate reaction that maybe they should sue makes me angry.

This sort of silliness has real life consequences for people.

braid_ged
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

---"I can't get what you're talking about."---

And that's really sad!

The only good thing is that as the recruiters lost all your data they can't find you a job, so you may have to stay unemployed. If you feel it's a real bummer you could always try and sue Fate.

Stephen Jones
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Stephen

fyi, I am currently employed and making 90k+. So please shut the hell up if you can not help. I am simply trying to get some advice from people in here. Please use your balderdash some where else, will ya?

Have a good day.

Worried soul
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

I'm gonna sue the next bastard that sues me for being too damn letigous. His law firm too for perpetuating this attitude, and society in general.

www.MarkTAW.com
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

somewhere I read :

"When there is one lawyer in a town he goes broke, when there are two they both get rich"

braid_ged
Thursday, January 8, 2004

Dear wiorried soul,
the only problem you've got is that you think everything in life can be blamed on somebody else. I'd recommend you a psychiatrist but after a couple of sessions you'd both probably want to sue me.

If you are genuinely worried about identlty theft, I would advise you to go to a notary public or whatever the equivalent is in your area and ask for some kind of official document stating that you have been informed by the recuritment company that their server, containing certain data, was stolen on such a day. Should help you if you get pulled in in another state for whatever somebody else has done.

But franklly, I doubt if you have anything to worry about. If the burglars wanted your info they would have cloned the HD, not taken the server. I would think that your data has long ago been deleted when they formatted the disk. And unless you have your credit details there, I doubt there is anything that can't be got hold of easily. The reason for so much identity theft in the States is that the info is so easy to get hold of.

Stephen Jones
Thursday, January 8, 2004

Simply ask yourself: "If I had an office, where I kept information on clients, and I locked up and went home one day, then came back in the morning to discover that thieves had forced there way in and stolen things, including client info, would I think it was fair when my clients all sued me?"

If the answer to that is yes, then by all means sue. However, I think if that happened to me, anyone that sued me would be put on my list of all time bastards.

Of course, if they didn't bother locking the offices, or just left the info outside on the pavement with a big sign saying "take me, i'm yours", then you'd have rather more moral grounds for complaint and indeed litigation.

Andrew Cherry
Thursday, January 8, 2004

I'm going to side with all the guys who say that your real problem is the information leak and what can be done with it. It sucks, but it's CYA time.

Consider this a lesson learned, next time, don't give so much personal information to the recruitment firm. Always question why people need your personal information, and what you can give them instead.

www.MarkTAW.com
Thursday, January 8, 2004

>I can't get what you're talking about. My question is can I sue the recruiting agency or not?

This is America.....you can sue anybody

A better approach would be to tally up your expenses incurred in getting this matter resolved with the credit agencies (you did put a fraud alert I hope) and ask then nicely if they would reimburse you that since you incurred them due to an issue with them.

Code Monkey
Thursday, January 8, 2004