In this sample data breach letter we see the “laissez-fare” and the “classical economic” theories. The former is where the government, or in this case, the company won’t interact unless the customers rights have been violated. This is an “action after damage” approach where very little is done to prevent them. The classical economic theory is where the government does not interfere and the belief that the customer who provided the information is at fault for sharing said information. The company is not taking responsibility for the data breach and are simply blaming their third party vendor. We all know the Captain goes down with the ship and is responsible for the actions of everyone, even if he/she wasn’t directly involved. The two social science theories we see in this letter are objectivity and parsimony. We see objectivity in the letter as all of the facts are presented without emotion and stated clearly for the reader. We see parsimony in this letter as the author makes the connection between compromised credit card information and future exploitation. They are saying if you have issues in the future, it is related to this breach. This is the most likely but it isn’t impossible that the same person compromised in the data breach could be compromised again or by another entity.
