Tue, September 30, 2008
BNY Mellon:Now It’s Personal
In June I wrote about Bank of New York Mellon's reported loss of computer tapes containing four million people's personal information. This month, BNY Mellon got around to informing me: I was one of the four million.
I’m not sure why it took BNY Mellon Shareholder Services six months to notify me that my ID information was on one of the wandering tapes. Their letter does, in a vague sort of way, acknowledge that it took them quite a while to let me know: “Please note that while the timing of this notice was affected by our forensic investigation into the nature and scope of this incident, based on information received to date, we have no reason to believe your information has or will be improperly accessed or misused as a result of this incident.”
Well, let’s see. Here are the facts:
- BNY Mellon stored the confidential information of 4 million customers in unencrypted form.
- Then, they lost it.
- After losing it, it took them six months to inform me about it.
- Now they have no reason to believe that my information will be misused, although they don’t know where it is.
Why don’t I feel more reassured?
The letter explains that the lost information was from people who “own securities, have owned securities in the past, or are participants in or previously have been participants in an organization’s equity compensation plan.” This incident illustrates that being careful with your personal information is not enough to guarantee that you won’t suffer having it lost or stolen.
BNY Mellon provided instructions on how I can register to obtain 24 months of credit monitoring services and ID theft insurance at no charge. I’ve tried a few times to complete the enrollment procedure and it hasn’t yet worked. I’ll keep trying.
Happily, I’ve already frozen my credit information. This, in my judgment, is much more cost-effective and safer than a credit monitoring service. Credit monitoring only tells you after the fact that something is wrong; a freeze is the only way to prevent the creation of unauthorized credit in your name. If you aren’t one of the happy few who qualify for free monitoring services from BNY Mellon, a freeze is probably the cheapest ID theft protection you can obtain. As I’ve explained before, the downside of a credit freeze is that you must request a “thaw” of your account whenever you want to apply for new credit. A freeze does not prevent your existing credit card companies from raising your credit limit on their own initiative.
There will surely be more large-scale data breaches in the future; if major banks can have such lax policies, retailers and other entities possessing confidential information probably aren’t much better off.
Related Post:
We Promise to Guard Your Social Security Number - Next Time