WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and co-Chairman of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, released the following statement today upon learning of another privacy breach at Sony, this time to the Sony Online Entertainment network. The company shut down the video game network yesterday after learning a hacker may have accessed names, birth dates, addresses and credit card information for current and previous users. This follows Sony’s announcement last week of a privacy breach to the PlayStation Network that exposed the names, birth dates and credit card numbers for 77 million users, including children.
 
“I am alarmed that twice within one week, sensitive consumer information, especially that of children, has been exposed by hackers. Sony’s tagline is ‘make.believe’. It also should be ‘make.secure’. As millions of Americans increasingly take advantage of the online functionality of videogames, it is critical that Sony protect the private, sensitive information of its users. Sony needs to explain how these breaches have occurred, why user information does not appear to have been encrypted and what the company is doing to fix the problem and help consumers whose data was exposed.”

###