Don't we all deserve to know when our personal information might be jeopardized? Posted by Gail Hillebrand at 02/17/06 11:58 AM

The Gripeline Weblog, at http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2006/02/14_a364.html#a364 had a story on Valentine's Day about the risk that Congress will pass a weak measure on notice of data security breaches which displaces stronger state laws. Gripeline author Ed Foster made a comparison to the CAN-SPAM Act, which took away state's rights to act without effectively ending spam. If you want to see Congress pass a strong strong data security law and a strong notice of security breach requirement, send an email to Congress by visiting the Consumers Union site: www.financialprivacynow.org. The home page offers a letter to Congress and links to states where bills are pending to give individuals the choice to lock, or "freeze" access to their consumer reporting files. Those laws have passed in 12 states, and are pending in a dozen more states. To find out if your state gives you the right to stop new creditors and others who want to open new accounts from looking at your credit file and credit score, see: http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns//learn_more/002355indiv.html.

For even more information on what is going on in Congress and the states on data security, notice of security breaches, and giving you more control over who sees your credit reporting file, see our Learn More page, at: http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/financialprivacynow/learn.html. Finally, for a really scary feeling, check out the list of data security breaches reported just in the year since the ChoicePoint story first became news: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm.

comments (0)