Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, asked the Treasury Department to bar Equifax Inc. from contract work with the federal government because of the data breach that compromised sensitive information for up to 145.5 million people.

Brown noted in a statement that Equifax contracted with the Social Security Administration for its online portal, mySocialSecurity. In his letter to the Treasury Department, he accused the company of negligence for failing to provide a software security update months before the breach, which occurred from May through July.

The company failed to give timely notice of the hack and subsequently offered remedial measures for consumers that were "wholly inadequate," he wrote.

Brown asked for a debarment, which would prevent Equifax from soliciting offers for federal contracts, obtaining new ones or renewing existing contracts for three years.