The Utah Attorney General announced a historic $600 million nationwide settlement with Equifax concerning the 2017 Equifax data breach affecting more than 147 million Americans, and more than 1.2 million Utahns. Fifty state attorneys general and the attorneys general of Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. are included in the settlement.
“I’m pleased Equifax will take serious steps to protect and reimburse consumers, even if it comes only after one of the worst lapses of consumer data protection in our history,” said Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes. “I urge Utah consumers affected by the breach to take advantage of Equifax’s agreement to pay for credit monitoring, identity theft protection and other measures and reimbursements.”
“Just the fear and uncertainty alone from a breach victimizes those whose data is compromised,” AG Reyes said. “I’m hopeful this offers some measure of relief to Utahns whose lives have been disrupted or even more significantly damaged.”
The terms of the multistate attorney general settlement are as follows:
- Equifax will offer affected consumers free credit monitoring services for 10 years;
- Equifax will provide free Identity Theft Restoration services to all affected consumers;
- Equifax will strengthen its data security practices to protect against another breach;
- Equifax will take several steps to assist consumers:
- with understanding their credit report;
- with disputing inaccurate entries on their credit report, including credit report entries that are the result of identity theft;
- who have become the victim of identity theft or who are concerned about becoming the victim of identity theft; and
- including assisting active-duty military members and veterans and their families with credit report issues unique to military members.
- Equifax will pay $300 million into a settlement fund for the benefit of affected consumers, with the possibility of paying up to an additional $125 million into the settlement fund, for a total of $425 million; and
- Equifax will pay $175 million to the states, $1,422,915.91 of which will go to Utah.
Details on the Consumer Settlement Fund
Affected consumers are eligible to request the following types of reimbursements from the settlement fund:
- Reimbursement for time spent trying to avoid or recover from identity theft (up to 20 total hours at $25 per hour);
- Reimbursement for money spent trying to avoid or recover from identity theft (such as costs for freezing your credit report, professional fees paid to address identity theft, postage, etc.);
- Up to $125 to reimburse for credit monitoring services purchased if you choose not to accept the offered 10 free years of credit monitoring service offered as a part of the settlement.
