Equifax apologizes again for its breach and says it will give consumers more control over their data.
Equifax apologized again for its massive data breach in a Friday earnings call but also touted plans to build a new credit monitoring tool to give consumers more control over their data.
Chief executive Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. outlined plans to rebuild trust after saying that Equifax’s senior leadership team will forgo “incentive compensation” — essentially, bonuses — for 2017.
He added that Equifax will release a free tool to allow anyone to lock their account to prevent others from viewing credit data or opening accounts in their name. (A credit lock, however, affords users fewer legal rights than a credit freeze, even in the event of a hack.) That tool is set to launch at the end of January.
He added that Equifax is working with other companies to create something similar for the whole industry.
“We believe the time is right for an industry-wide solution that provides consumers a way to substantially improve visibility and control to personal credit data for free, for life,” he said.
Equifax currently has a credit monitoring service that it’s offering free to all 145.5 million consumers affected by the breach; registration remains open through Jan. 31. The service allows users to monitor and even freeze their accounts. The firm’s chief financial officer, John W. Gamble Jr., said during the earnings call that 1.5 percent to 2 percent of all Equifax files now have a lock or freeze placed on them.
Overall, Equifax has said that roughly 30 million people have visited the website it set up to inform consumers about the breach. But it has not reached out to individuals affected by the breach personally — leaving questions about how many people could still be unaware that their sensitive information was stolen, as Equifax tries to move on.
A recent survey from financial site CreditCards.com found that 71 million American adults hadn’t heard anything about the breach more than a month after it was first announced, despite heavy news coverage.
Barros has declined to say whether Equifax will reach out to individuals by mail or email. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who helped introduce a consumer protection bill called the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act after the breach, sent a letter Thursday requesting that the credit bureau do so.
Equifax also said Friday it expects to incur related costs of between $60 million and $75 million in the current quarter due to its massive data breach.
The Atlanta company reported a 27 percent slump in thirdquarter profit, largely due to the hack.
It revealed this week that, in relation to shares sales by executives in the immediate aftermath of the breach, it has now received subpoenas from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, where it is based.
Word of the subpoenas arrived a week after the company said that an internal review, done by a special committee of independent directors, found that four executives who had sold a combined $1.8 million worth of shares in the immediate aftermath of the breach had done nothing wrong.