The following content is sponsored by the Electronic Payments Coalition.
Over 780,000 data records are lost through breaches and hacking efforts every single day, yet the average American can do so little to protect themselves against it.
That’s why we trust financial institutions to protect our data, and rightfully so. Banks and credit unions invest billions of dollars in data security, as they understand the importance of protecting their customer’s sensitive information. Due to the sheer value of confidential information they possess, they are held to strict data security compliance requirements.
Mega-stores like Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, who value profit over the best interest of hard-working Americans, do no such thing.
A new bill sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall threatens to put power directly in their hands – the greedy hands of these mega-stores who are willing to compromise Americans’ data security to skyrocket their profits.
The Durbin-Marshall bill proposes to upend the current credit card system. This law would allow cards to be routed on alternative networks. While everyday Americans see this change as ominous (and rightfully so), Durbin and Marshall’s mega-store allies see nothing but dollar signs, as this alteration would allow them to cut corners and turn to a cheaper, less secure router.
A recent research report offers greater insights into the ways that moving routing decisions from banks to corporate retailers will lead to a heightened risk of data breaches. As the report points out, mega-stores have a long history of jeopardizing their customer’s data. Wawa, Home Depot, and Target all experienced malware attacks in total that compromised the credit and debit card data of over 127 million people.
Unlike banks and credit unions, mega-stores do not invest in security measures to protect their customers’ data from malicious actors. They will do anything to line their pockets, even at the expense of the American people.
Home Depot did not even have a Chief Information Security Officer until after their infamous 2014 data breach. Similarly, after Wawa’s breach, attorney generals stated that the company did not even have “reasonable security measures in place to protect customer data.”
These corporations have demonstrated time and again their lack of value for the American people by refusing to protect them or even be transparent with them. They feel no remorse for the financial and emotional stress they have caused their customers and still have not learned from their mistakes.
The Durbin-Marshall credit bill will allow mega-stores to cut even more corners with data security. Congress needs to reject this bill to help Americans. Americans deserve more data protection, not less.
It’s up to Congress now to decide what’s more important – helping their constituents or helping the lobbyists of these corporate giants. If they truly care about Americans, the decision should be easy.
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