from NPR, we learn that Europe takes the privacy of personal information much more seriously than the US.
[Davies] You'd never have a Choicepoint; you couldn't have a Choicepoint operating in Europe; it wouldn't happen.
That's Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, a watchdog group based in London.
European credit rating companies, he says, are kept on a much tighter leash than their American counterparts. They can collect less data, so there's less to be stolen. And Europeans have no single number like our Social Security number that unlocks a treasure trove of data. If problems do arise, many European countries have privacy commissioners who investigate complaints.
But Simon Davies says the main reason why Europeans have for the most part avoided an epidemic of identity theft is the attitudes of ordinary people.
[Davies] Here you find routinely as you go into stores in London or Munich, you'll discover people at the counter arguing about why they should hand over their information, and actually bluntly refusing to hand it over. That's probably because they understand that once they've handed it over it could be at risk of theft, it could leak, the information could be stolen.
By comparison, says Larry Pottiman, a privacy consultant, Americans are often quick to share personal information with complete strangers.
[Pottiman] We see this time and again where the consumer says, "hey how did you get my Social Security number, or how did you get information about my children, you know - question mark." And the reality is you gave it them. You know, you didn't ask the question, "why are you collecting this data, whether it's on a website or over the telephone."
Pottiman says there are strong historic reasons for these different attitudes towards privacy. Europeans remember how the Nazis used Census data to round up Jews during WWII, and later how the Soviet block countries of eastern Europe kept tabs on their citizens. As a result, Europe today has among the strictest laws protecting personal data. Again, Larry Pottiman:
[Pottiman] This problem, the issues that we're dealing with today, I think the Europeans solved it a long time ago. And I think part of it is the recency of WWII, and being a victim of that.
But US officials defend the American approach to privacy issues: an approach that relies more on corporate compliance and less on government regulation.
Listen to the full report here.