At least Canada still offers oversite and cares about privacy

Our government sure doesn't. Any normal person would think that the theft of 45 million credit and debit cards might warrant a serious investigation, with the public deserving a clear answer but how silly that normal person would be. No, these are different times and nobody really gives a damn any more. Thanks to the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, we now have some answers on the TJX (owners of TJ Maxx, Marshalls) on this incredible loss of personal data.

TJX disclosed the breach in January, but the company and U.S. government investigators have yet to publicly disclose how they believe intruders initially broke into TJX's systems in a theft that exposed at least 45 million credit and debit cards to potential fraud.

"The company collected too much personal information, kept it too long and relied on weak encryption technology to protect it -- putting the privacy of millions of its customers at risk," said Stoddart, who announced the findings at an information security conference in Montreal on Tuesday.

Why did the US government feel it had to side with TJX instead of siding with the 45 million who were victim to corporate incompetence? This tired routine of always protecting business instead of consumers is really getting old. If the corporate world wants to be casual with the personal data of 45 million people, the public has a right to know about it and we shouldn't have to find out from another country what is going on in our own. What ever happened to Hillary's initiative on personal privacy? It seemed to die on the vine ages ago.