Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. senators to offer bipartisan data-breach bill

Via Reuters.

Business leaders who fail to tell consumers when they may be at risk of identity theft could face jail under a bipartisan bill expected to be introduced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's top Democrat, would also restrict a freewheeling trade in Social Security numbers that are prized by identity thieves.

The bill, the first to draw Republican sponsorship, comes on the heels of the largest security breach announced to date after an outsider gained access to 40 million credit-card accounts held by CardSystems Solutions Inc., a payment processor.

Dozens of similar breaches have been disclosed this year after a California state law required businesses to make such incidents public.

Businesses and consumers have urged the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a national version of the California notification law.

posted by Fergie @ 6/22/2005 11:43:00 AM