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Lori Abbott, California News Service
April 4, 2014 (Sacramento)--A new bill that targets data breaches is aiming to protect California consumers. The legislation comes after massive data breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus last year compromised millions of customers' credit and debit cards.
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson says his bill would limit the kind of information companies could store in their databases and require businesses to notify customers of a breach within 15 days.
"A consumer has the right to know where their information has been stolen from, as well as have a choice as to whether or not to continue to transact business with the source of the compromised data or the breach," he says.
AB 1710 would also require businesses to provide free identity theft services to victims and prohibit the selling of an individual's Social Security number.
Dickinson says of the dozens of companies that have seen breaches, only a small portion of them detected it on their own. He says they realize the retailers affected by the recent mega data breaches are not the first, nor will they be the last.
"What we're trying to do is make sure that prudent steps are taken to prevent them to the extent possible," he says. "Secondly, that information that might be available is not so robust that it's everything about a person so that information is limited."
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