House Takes First Steps on Federal Data Breach Law

  • 27 January 2015
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by Brian Donohue      January 27, 2015

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade today held its first hearing of the 114th Congress in order to begin work on developing federal data breach legislation. Pre-hearing memos suggested that any data breach notification law would be primarily concerned with protecting consumers. However, under the guise of preventing so-called “over notification,” all but one witness served to protect business interests, urging Congress to limit notifications to those in which malicious intent is imminent.

Three of the four witnesses stressed the importance of writing “harm triggers” into the data breach law that would effectively allow businesses to stay mum about breaches in which the exposed data posed no apparent risk of future harm to affected consumers. Just one testifier noted that it is nearly impossible to forecast future malicious intent and argued that consumers have the right to know about any breach of their personal information regardless of perceived intent or malicious potential.
 
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