New Bill Would Protect Washington Consumers Over Identity Theft

The Washington State Attorney General is working with the State House and Senate to sponsor a bill that would greatly increase consumer protection in the event of data breaches and identity theft.

According to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Washington state's consumer protection laws have some very big holes.    They don't require public notification when a company's data has been hacked or breached;  and there's no deadline required by companies to notify consumers when it happens.    A hacker could break into a businesses' data files and we might not hear about it for months.

And, businesses are not required to publicly release information to consumers about how to protect themselves in case of a data breach.

Companion bills in the State House and Senate  (1078 and 2074)  would add much more protection.

They would require companies to publicly announce if their database has been hacked;  require them to let the public know within 30 days if a successful breach occurred,  and inform the public of specific steps they can take to protect their personal information.

According to the Online Trust Alliance, who monitors hacking activities, 16.6 million Americans were identity theft victims in 2012.  Last year,  there were 2,164 known data breaches in the U.S. and worldwide.    Over 830 million personal records were exposed, including credit card and social security numbers, log-in and password information, e-mail addresses and more.

The bill is supported by both parties, and is expected to pass.