PlayStation Network Down Update: Sony Skips Congressional Hearing

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This may be the worst month on record for Sony, as they’ve had two embarrassing high-profile network intrusions recently. It’s no secret that the US Government and members of Congress were looking into the data leaks, and the US House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade announced they would hold a hearing entitled “The Threat of Data Theft to American Consumers,” this week on the recent high-profile intrusions. Great! Sony was asked to attend, which is probably who you’d want at such an event, but unfortunately, Sony has announced they aren’t showing up.

Sony was originally asked to answer several questions via email and send a representative to attend the hearing in person. They were given a deadline of May 6^th, but when Sony declined to send a representative to the hearing, the Committee moved the deadline for the questions up to May 3^rd. Sony says that despite the deadline, they still plan to cooperate with the government.  A Sony spokesperson told the New York Times that the company will be telling the Committee whatever they want to know, even though the deadline has been moved up, and they have been and will continue to fully cooperate with the government.

The office of Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Bono Mack is understandably upset with Sony’s reaction. A representative of her office said to the New York Times:

We’ve taken a pretty tough line with the company, […] While we understand the company is going through a tough time with this, there are certain questions that need answering.

It seems that some members of Congress are considering establishing some sort of “data breach notification law” where companies are compelled to inform users if they have lost their sensitive data. The UK and Taiwan also have laws that hold companies liable for monetary fines if they lose customer data – I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like that put it place here in the United States.