Dem senator on Equifax breach: ‘Somebody needs to go to jail’

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is calling for a criminal investigation into Equifax’s stock sales after a massive data breach earlier this year, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Equifax, one of the country’s three major credit bureaus, revealed this month that it had learned in July that a data breach may have compromised the personal information of 143 million Americans. 

Three Equifax executives, including the company’s chief financial officer, John Gamble Jr., reportedly sold nearly $2 million worth of shares after learning of the data breach but before they made the hack public.

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“If that happened, somebody needs to go to jail,” Heitkamp said at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions’ conference in Washington Tuesday, according to Reuters.

“It’s a problem when people can act with impunity with no consequences,” she added. “How is that not insider trading?” 

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to Equifax chairman and CEO Richard Smith on Monday seeking answers on the data breach. 

The FBI is also investigating the hack.