| Max King of the Wild said:
|
It actually doesn't need to be your credit card number; the law is broader than that, as it includes account numbers as well. And the public information part is only for things that you can get by request "from federal, state, or local government records," something which definitely does not include your personal e-mail address, which is the part I'm focusing on.
After all, according to Sony itself the unecrypted information included "name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password ...
The underlined portions are the key since, as I said, people routinely recycle the same passwords. Sony knows this, since it also warned "Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well."
The issue is not whether your PSN account can be used to gain your financial information (which for many people it can, due to shared passwords and online banking), but whether the link is proximate enough for your PSN account to thus qualify as an "account number." I admit that I'm less confident now than I was earlier, but I can see a better lawyer than I linking the two sufficiently enough to qualify. This is doubly true since the statute's preamble speaks of how the law is intended to protect consumers' online privacy, and address the concern that private information leaks too easily.
