Ok so: a third party (Equifax) has collected sensitive personal data on citizens without their consent and is asking a fee to prevent other third parties from accessing this information. isn't this technically blackmail?
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Before deciding to blackmail, you should consult a qualified attorney in the appropriate jurisdiction.
While blackmail is a specific case of extortion where unfavorable information is released, what the agencies do by requiring you to pay for protection(the freezing of your credit)seems to qualify as extortion.
"What Is Extortion?
Most states define extortion as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force, or threat of 1) violence, 2) property damage, 3) harm to reputation, or 4) unfavorable government action."
I think you could make a case for number 3 - gaining money for threat of harm to reputation. Your credit score is very much your financial reputation.
source: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/extortion.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru...
One could argue the disclosure timing and executive stock sales (pre-disclosure) could constitute investor/securities fraud, as well.
Unfortunately, there's no law I'm aware of that's going to help you here - although there /possibly/ should be a law governing ownership of someone else's private data, that's not currently the case, as far as I know (IANAL). It's also not immediately obvious to me how you'd construct such a law without causing problems for many other areas of the financial system.
Whether Jeff Sessions thinks so is another story.
That's incorrect. CRAs can only release information to others if the requester has "permissible purpose". Under ordinary circumstances, that means you've asked the requester for some sort of service that allows them to pull your credit report.
The purpose of a freeze is to prevent someone from trying to impersonate you and use your credit file. If you just want to be paranoid about it (or "proactive" if you prefer) then you can pay to have your file frozen and unlocked on demand. If you're already a victim of identity theft or legitimately expect to be, then you can get the freeze for free, I believe.