The article “Why the Equifax Breach Stings So Bad” presented by Lieber is about Equifax Breach credit company who sell their customer information without permission from their customer, which leads many customers to be in bad situations. According to the article it said, “Among the 2,000 or so enraged messages that I received after the most recent Equifax data breach, the wish that came up most often was that Richard F. Smith, the company’s chief executive, be pushed out the door. But the messages also reflected something I had not seen before, not even after the scandals at Wells Fargo and Volkswagen, even though those companies committed similarly egregious offenses. It was a sense of helplessness, the recognition that we are at the mercy of an industry that makes money off our data, treats us with disdain, and answers to no one.” In this Case Analysis, I will argue that Deontology/Kantianism shows us that the Equifax breach harmed customers by selling customer credit information and this was morally bad.

According to Milton Friedman’s article, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” His central concept was social responsibilities. He explained that “If these are “social responsibilities,” they are the social responsibilities of individuals, not of business.” also stated that “It must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers.” Social responsibility was an interesting and important concept. In my opinion, I believe every businessman or company should not overlook the negative impact of their actions. In short, think before you act and consider the impact. According to the Lieber article, Equifax was not just selling customer data for profit, they also did not care if customer data was being secure or not. Lastly, Equifax also had bad customer service and didn’t try to help customers. Therefore, the Social Responsibility concept by Friedman would fit this case analysis. Companies should be responsible for their actions and not only focus on increasing their profits by harming others.

An ethical tool to assess the actions taken in the case is Kantianism or Kant. According to the unlock tools article of Deontology/Kantianism, Kantiansim was a deontological position proposed by Immanuel Kant. Deontology was focused on people’s reasons for acting in considering whether a particular action is right or wrong. Kant’s concept might be uncompromising and harsh; However, it could be helpful for keeping us away from making excuses for ourselves and wrongly justifying being unfair to others. According to my understanding, Kant has three main objectives which are “Kant held that one could do something that resulted in good things but that was motivated by bad reasons. When this happens, the person has still done something wrong.” Second is “Kant held that above all, there was one ultimate reason on which we should always act; he called this the categorical imperative—meaning that it is the imperative of morality (“be moral!”) that applies categorically” Lastly, “For Kant, the duty to respect others is absolute, and it’s never right to fail to respect others for the greater good”. With the Kant concept, Equifax should respect others by doing the right thing. And do not use them even for good ends, and even for their own good. Which is not to sell customer credit information and also provide help or response for customer needs. According to the Liber article, Equifax was slack in terms of customer support. For example, customers can’t check whether or not their data has been compromised due to website issues. Another situation is customers are unable to do a correction on their credit information. It seems like nobody has any control over any stuff. According to this Equifax failed to meet Kant’s idea, Equifax did not respect others and failed to respect the greater good. Which Social Responsibility concept by Friedman was making a great point for this situation. Companies and individuals have a duty to act in the best interest of their society as a whole.

According to Melvin Anshen’s article “Changing the Social Contract: A Role for Business.” His central concept was a social contract. The social contract concept was a philosophy and political theorist. According to Melvin Anshen’s article, he said: “One way to comprehend the whole development is to view it as an emerging demand for a new set of relationships among business, government, non-economic organizations, and individuals.” Which can be described as an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits. The social contract was popular among theorists of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. As a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects. Therefore, we can view a social contract as a law that everyone has to obey to achieve a peaceful society. According to the Lieber article, “Why the Equifax Breach Strings So Bad” Equifax completely destroys this concept of the social contract by ignoring the social benefits and only focusing on their own profit and benefit. An example from the article is “an industry that makes money off our data, treats us with disdain, and answers to no one.” Another example was “The industry’s cynical response to its own sloppiness has been to sell highly profitable monitoring services to people who fear errors and identify theft.” According to this information, Equifax did not cooperate for social benefits or even their own customers. However, Equifax was only caring about themselves and willing to sacrifice others for their own good. The best ethical tool to assess the actions taken in the case was also Kantianism. Equifax’s action was immoral. The best key concept of Kantianism for this situation was “Kant held that one could do something that resulted in good things but that was motivated by bad reasons.” It seems like Equifax was sharing information with other finance agencies for the customer’s own good. However, it turned out that Equifax was selling this data to others without customer permission. This action could be also called identity theft and it was not the right thing to be done. In my opinion, what Equifax should have done to be considered to be a social contract and the achiever of a Kantianism concept was to inform every customer before handing out customer information and also provide the reason or purpose. Another example of Equifax trying to destroy social contract was “Consider the revelation that the president of Equifax’s information solutions unit in the United States and its chief financial officer sold stock after the breach was discovered but before it was made public. If they knew about the break-in, they violated insider trading laws. The company says they did not know” According to this information, this means that both presidents of Equifax’s information solutions unit and its chief financial officer spotted this issue all along and did not take any action to fix it. Also, again they also try to get away by making an exception for themself, which is an opposite direction of Kang “act so that the maxim of your action can be willed as a universal law” Overall, Equifax should respect others and not do things that were motivated by bad reasons.

In conclusion, the Equifax breach did harm a lot of customers that rely on credit history and destroy customer trust. Also, sell customer information or data to other agencies for their own good without permission. This was morally bad because Equifax did not just destroy the trust of customers, but also disrespect them. Which is the most important aspect of Kantianism’s moral reasoning concept. Equifax’s action is also motivated by bad reasons and does not follow the idea of always treating them as an end to themselves, never as a mere means. Which means doing the right thing means respecting others, not using them even for good ends, and even for their own good. Lastly, for Kant the concept was that respect for others is an absolute duty. Nevertheless, I was against Equifax’s action. What they have done was completely wrong and they should step up to fix this issue. Not just to improve their company but also for the benefit of society and to be responsible to a whole society.