The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inadvertently leaked the personal data of about 650 cryptocurrency miners in the course of an investigation related to Green.
For several years, the SEC has been investigating Green, which created a decentralized energy system, according to the Washington Examiner. The Green team actively interacted with the department, responding to all its requests. At the request of the regulator, the company provided it with a list of its customers for conducting surveys. Considering that the information was received in the format of an email, due to an accidental SEC error, user data was leaked and it ended up in the public domain.
Green customers are outraged by what happened, claiming that their names and email addresses will be enough to identify their identity, as well as to hack the nodes used to mine Green tokens. This disclosure, however accidental, may be considered a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. According to this law, the sharing of any personal data obtained by a federal agency is strictly prohibited without the consent of the users. The SEC commented on the situation, saying that protecting privacy is critical and the regulator is looking into what happened.
Green has not yet taken any action against the SEC, although there have been lawsuits against the Commission in the past. For example, last year, Grayscale filed a lawsuit against the SEC for rejecting an application to convert the GBTC fund into an exchange-traded investment fund (ETF). The agency justified its decision by saying that Bitcoin spot ETFs are subject to market manipulation, and therefore pose a great risk to investors.
In addition, since the end of 2020, the SEC has continued to pursue a legal battle with Ripple, accusing it of conducting an unregistered ICO. Many members of the crypto community believe that if Ripple admits the SEC charges and pays a fine, this will have a bad effect on the further development of the industry.