3 What the Equifax Blunder Means for Military Members

3



By now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have heard of the egregious mishandling of the personal identifiable information of 143 million consumers by credit reporting agency Equifax.  What you probably have not heard is about the impact that this leak, which occurred between mid-May and July of this year but wasn’t reported until September, will impact the thousands of Americans serving in our armed forces.
Finances, in the last ten years or so, has become a hot button topic in the top echelons of military command.  Personal financial responsibility, to be more exact, is being drilled into new recruits going through basic training as we speak.  Why, you may ask?  The reason is simple, most new recruits today come from a rung on the socio-economic ladder where financial responsibility is not addressed either by parents or in school.  This lack of education made it easy for service members in the past to fall prey to predatory lending and other types of financial pitfalls.
So why all the kerfuffle?  Well, it all has to do with clearances.  Most, if not all, of the military occupational specialties will require some sort of clearance in the future.  In order for anyone to obtain a clearance, they must have a spotless personal record, to include finances.  For members of the military that are in financial peril, clearances are harder to come by.  Their financial problems would put them at risk for potential espionage or sabotage from foreign entities.  It would be too enticing for a young Airman in financial trouble to turn down a payment of fifty thousand dollars to spy on their county or sabotage a multi-million dollar asset.  It sounds like the stuff that movies are made of, but it does happen.  Like in the case of Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, who after making bad investments in the late 1960’s, was strapped for cash.  He decided to leak location and encryption codes for U.S. assets to the Russians for 18 years and even got his son to collaborate with him.  There are even claims that the sinking of the USS Scorpion was due to his spying.  These traitors were finally exposed by Walker’s ex-wife, who told everything to the FBI.
Now, imagine that after all of this tactical maneuvering amongst the financial mine field, a well-intentioned young service member will have to deal with identity theft?  It is said that “less than one percent” of the population serves in the military.  If we apply that fuzzy math to our current Equifax debacle, the records of over fourteen thousand service men and women have potentially become compromised and probably already been sold on the dark web.  As a prior military financial counselor, I cringe at the thought of having to help these brave men and women rebuild their credit in order to not lose their clearances.  I am hopeful though that military leaders have recognized this and will, or have, put in place measures to mitigate these issues.  It would be a shame if these men and women were reprimanded for something they had zero control over.  All we can do is wait and see.
References
Staff (2016) What Percentage of Americans Are in Military.  Retrieved from http://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/What-Percentage-of-Americans-Are-in-Military-101453268
Kotlikoff, L. (2017) Has Equifax Just Jeopardized Your And 143 Million Other Americans' Social Security Benefits?  Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/09/10/has-equifax-just-jeopardized-your-and-143-million-other-americans-social-security-benefits/#9aae6296f584
Nye, D. (2015) 11 Spies Who did the Worst Damage to the U.S. Military.  Retrieved from https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/06/04/11_american_spies_who_did_the_worst_damage_to_the_us_military_108022.html

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