Taking a look at the issue that is presented in the article about Equifax, it is one of those scenarios that happens often when there is a human weakness in the equation. The overall gist of this article and the situation that it talks about is when Equifax had a data breach that leaked very confidential personal information about many people. It is important to remember that a lot of these people were not directly customers of Equifax and had their data leaked because of their banks that they dealt with. This is a similar case to many data breaches that occur in the world, with the key exception being that Equifax for some reason decided to drop the ball way harder than many people were expecting. In the Case Analysis I will argue that Contractarianism shows that the Equifax breach harmed not only the people that directly dealt with them but those outside the country by not reporting this problem when it was first discovered and this was morally bad.

To take a more detailed look at this scenario and to further understand what it all means, we look at a couple of articles. The first being written by Milton Friedman, and in this article by him he talks all about how the sole purpose of a company or business should be to increase profits. This includes the profits of the people that have bought shares in that business or corporation. This is essentially him saying that no matter what happens the business should be singularly focused on making money and increasing the profit. This includes when morally or ethically questionable things happen due to the decisions made by the owners of said business or the people that are employed by that business. Keep in mind that Equifax is a company that many people need to go through in order to get a good credit score.

Now if we were to view the situation of the Equifax breach through the lens of what Friedman proposes business should be, then we get an interesting standpoint. If the sole purpose of business is to increase profits, then is the data breach really something that Equifax should be liable for? And if we were to view this situation through that viewpoint, does Equifax need to pay for any kind of damages done? This is the moral question that is posed from this situation using Friemans stance, and it is one that I think is pretty simple to answer. The answer being that yes, they most definitely should pay for the breach and the consequences that arose from it.

Now if we also view this from the Contractarian viewpoint, we see this situation a little differently. Contractarians view ethics as a form of social contract, meaning that they view moral and ethical obligations as something that they all mutually benefit from. One such instance of this is like giving your personal information to a company so that you can get a good credit score. And to then use that credit score to help further what you want for your own future and possibly the futures of others. Now imagine that you have a social contract with Equifax, you give them your personal information such as your social security number, and a lot of your financial information. In return for you giving them this information they will give you the possibility to achieve a good credit score, which will then allow you to buy certain things that you may want. 

That is the social contract that these people had with Equifax, and it was broken. Not only was that personal information leaked and taken from Equifax, but there is also evidence to suggest that some higher up individuals within the company itself had knowledge of the breach. Yet even with this information they did not reveal it until they had already sold their own stocks within the company. This showed many people just who they were dealing with and they were done with dealing with it. Suffice to say that these people were not happy with that contract.

Moving on to the second article, this one is written by Melvin Anshen and is all about the social contract. Essentially the main point of this article is all about how businesses have been working like how Friedman says they should. Anshen says that businesses that work solely to increase their own profits should change, and that change would also change the social contract as well. Anshen thinks that businesses need to have a more direct relationship with society as a whole. Mainly that they need to be involved and interested in more things than their own financial interests. 

Now if we take this idea and view the topic of the Case Analysis we get something that is quite different from what the Friedman model had. Looking at what happened with the ideals of Anshen we can definitively say that Equifax made some big mistakes. However, using Anshens’ ideas the fact that they decided to respond in the way that they did is quite the opposite of what a business should do in this type of situation. If Equifax had been using Anshens’ ideology then they would not have done any of the shady stuff that they did when the breach initially occurred. Instead they would have been much more proactive in managing the breach and working to lessen the effects of it overall.

Taking a look at this viewpoint through the lens of Contractarianism we get a much different perspective than we did with Friedman. Already Anshen talks about the social contract, and how it relates to business. We also see that he thinks that it needs to change based on how business is dealing with society as a whole, being more invested in the social and environmental issues that arise. This is the type of social contract that would be viewed as good, or at least better than what is depicted in the Equifax scenario. If this was the type of social contract that was in place during the incident then the outcome might have been very different. 

Regardless of what the social contract was at the time of this incident, the fact of the matter is that it was an unfavorable happening for the people that were affected. They put their trust into Equifax to keep their data safe and they failed in that mission. The outrage is quite understandable and I think that it warranted and the people who allowed this to happen will face the legal consequences for this mistake. After all that is what the social contract would demand of the company, they did not uphold their side of the agreement and for that reason they should deal with the consequences of that failure. It would be viewed as the morally right thing to have happened from the Contractarian viewpoint. It is only right that this would be the result of this mistake that they allowed to happen under their watch and supervision, and the people that knew about the breach but did not immediately tell people should be in jail.

To close this Case Analysis I do just want to say that I do think that Equifax is responsible for this breach happening and that they need to face the consequences for it. There are a lot of cases where data breaches occur and the implications for them are wide reaching and leave many people in fear over their data. This is a problem that is very scary to have to deal with and it is not something that can be fixed easily. It is always important to understand who you are giving your information to and what they are going to do with it as well. Businesses need to place better and stronger security on this data to ensure that the people who placed their trust in them is not something that they will come to regret in the future. The social contract needs to be something that everyone is willing to trust and believe in. 

Signed:

Kaden Isom