Today I received a letter from ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. saying:
“We are writing you to let you know that a computer tape containing information about you and your mortgage account with ABN AMRO has been lost while being transported by DHL courier service to a credit reporting company.”
They did offer me 90 days of free credit service monitoring with Truecredit, a TransUnion service – but that web site seems to be down.
To me, this is truly worrisome. I wish the government would implement stricter rules on privacy and on who controls what happens to our personal data. By signing a mortgage with ABN AMRO or any other provider, I should not automatically sign away my rights to what happens to my personal information. Why is it that ABN can chose to ship my personal information on a tape via DHL to a third party? If indeed the sharing is needed to enable the commerce to function, why are they not forced to use dedicated money transport vehicles and services – which they use to transport their own stuff? But more importantly – why cannot I have a say in this?
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