Democracy Dies in Darkness

A credit freeze or fraud alert? One offers better protection from a hack.

National Public Data, the latest company to report a major data breach, tells consumers to protect themselves by taking “preventive measures.”

5 min
color0821 (Illustration by Kat Brooks/The Washington Post; iStock)
Column by

We have lost control of our data.

Our personal information — Social Security number, email and passwords — is not as protected as companies would have us believe. Once they have it, criminals sell it like a knockoff designer handbag, confident they probably won’t be caught or punished.

Last week, we learned about another compromised security system, this one affecting National Public Data, which offers a range of services used by private investigators, staffing agencies and public record sites.

Skip to end of carousel