Overview
- Congressional Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee released a minority report estimating more than $20.9 billion in consumer losses from identity theft tied to four breaches at Equifax (2017), Exactis (2018), National Public Data (2023), and TransUnion (2025).
- The estimate applies published assumptions that just over 30 percent of breach victims experience identity theft and that 58–69 percent of those victims incur financial losses, with a median loss of about $200.
- The inquiry followed reporting by The Markup and CalMatters that found many data brokers used “no index” code and other dark patterns that made legally required opt-out and deletion pages hard to find.
- After Senator Maggie Hassan’s August letters, Comscore, Telesign, 6sense, and IQVIA reported changes such as removing “no index” code, adding prominent links, enabling indexing, moving pages to OneTrust, and conducting audits of request processing.
- Findem did not respond to the committee, had not removed “no index” code, and disclosed in 2024 that it did not process 80 percent of privacy requests, raising concerns about responsiveness and consumer protections.