With all these companies losing people's personal data to hackers...
 

I feel like I should be able to walk into any company I do business with and ask to see my file. Why should they get to keep a secret file with notes made by their employees only to lose it to some hacker halfway across the world at a later date, without even having to explain what information about me was stolen?

They always seem to downplay the data that was stolen too.

"Citibank claims far more sensitive info like social security numbers, birth dates, card expiry dates and CVV card security codes was not compromised."
Oh sure, I believe that! :Oh crap

What about the stuff they probably wouldn't even report was stolen? If you go to the bank, the teller takes notes about you for the next teller to read, and for their sales and marketing departments. Surely many other companies are doing the same thing.

That's not a "number" or an "id" or anything else they'd feel like they need to report on, like you listed above. Those are all recognizable things. Are they really going to come out with "They stole all the dirt we'd managed to dig about you from our 10 year relationship"... I doubt it.

We'd have to hope the hackers would tell us, I guess?

yeah the bank writes stuff about you down

tellers are given power to pronounce you a problem customer at their whim

everytime i go in there im all jokes and smiles
and if anyone else gets out of line, i always hope i get that teller so i can comment on what a dick the last person was

my bank loves me

In Denmark you can do this, any data about you you can ask for and they have to hand it over. Now if they give you the real data about you that's something else, but it's the law.

Even if the bank has all good info written down about you, do you want that information compromised and distributed, or sold? You'd be a better target than the problem customers.

Make billions... buy the company. Look at your file. Simple!

The keep losing it because they refuse to pay enough to hire the tech guys that can protect it and pay them enough to stay current on how to protect it.

Normally once they hire them they squash them with soooo much corporate shit that they just say fuck it and take the weekly check.

You can, but they can charge you an admin fee for having to make it available to you.