If you’ve been following the news at all lately you’ve likely seen the coverage of not one, but many data loss scandals recently.  I am always intrigued by how companies respond in these situations and their timelines for divulging information.  Needless to say, it’s moments like this when I am thankful that this is someone else’s problem. 

After reading the statement that Citigroup distributed publicly, it’s nice to see that they are not trying to shrug off blame.

In fact, I saw a great quote from a CitiFinancial spokesperson saying: “Clearly we regret that this happened with our customers. We’re trying to be upfront — to communicate and to talk about what the issues are.” (Someone clearly knows PR 101)

I remember reading in BusinessWeek how Iron Mountain commented on the Time Warner issue saying: "human error — it happens". I am not sure if that assuaged customers 100 percent but I could be wrong.

Regardless of the communication “exposure” details, the issue has been raised and consumer privacy laws similar to what has been discussed in California are taking center stage.

What a good time to be a storage company not promoting tape backup.

-John Welton