President Obama Announces Cybersecurity Data Privacy Initiatives

President Obama Announces Cybersecurity Data Privacy Initiatives

With the support of the business community, President Barack Obama recently announced plans for a uniform data breach notification standard. Obama’s national federal standard was just one of several cybersecurity and data privacy initiatives the President has previewed in advance of his January 20 State of the Union Address.

Most states have data breach notification laws in place, which dictate how private and government entities must notify individuals of data breaches involving personally identifiable information. The federal regulation would replace these laws, which often vary from state to state.

“It’s confusing for consumers and it’s confusing for companies—and it’s costly, too, to have to comply to this patchwork of laws,” the President stated. “Sometimes, folks don’t even find out their credit card information has been stolen until they see charges on their bill, and then it’s too late.”

Under the Personal Data Notification and Protection Act, companies would have to notify consumers of a data breach within 30 days.

The proposed data privacy initiatives and notification legislation would also make it a crime to sell customers’ identities overseas.

As previously discussed on the Scarinci Hollenbeck Business News Blog, the cost of data breaches is on the rise. According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2014 Cost of Data Breach Study, the average cost of a data breach was $3.5 million in 2013, representing a 15 percent increase over 2012 figures. A national standard is expected to lesson the costs of responding to data breaches by allowing companies to develop one response plan that can be implemented across multiple jurisdictions in which they have operations.

For consumers, it should speed up the notification process considerably.

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