Data Brokers Press for U.S. Law
Joseph Menn reports for the Los Angeles Times on efforts by various data brokers to support federal rules to safeguard personal information - preferring a consistent federal standard vs. a range of potentially tougher and more varied state laws.
Following California's lead, the number of states requiring companies to disclose the loss of sensitive personal information — credit card and Social Security numbers, for example — has grown to 22. Twelve states, triple the number a year ago, allow some consumers to prevent credit applications from being made in their name or let consumers block access to their credit records."Many states are starting to deal with the problem," said Susanna Montezemolo, a policy analyst for the nonprofit Consumers Union. "A national solution is great if done the right way, but it could actually set us back."
Several of the federal bills have provisions that consumer advocates like, but the drafts keep changing and will probably be combined in the spring, said Chris Hoofnagle, West Coast director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. Some of the bills would force disclosure of an information breach only when the company involved decided there was a "significant" risk of fraud — a loophole that Consumers Union said would have stopped disclosure in dozens of the big 2005 cases.
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