New Data Breach Legislation Proposed In North Carolina

After a surge in data breaches in North Carolina during 2017, state legislators have proposed stronger data breach laws. The National Law Review explained what prompted the legislative action:

"On January 8, 2018, the State of North Carolina released its Security Breach Report 2017, which highlights a 15 percent increase in breaches since 2016... Health care, financial services and insurance businesses accounted for 38 percent, with general businesses making up for just more than half of these data breaches. Almost 75 percent of all breaches resulted from phishing, hacking and unauthorized access, reflecting an overall increase of more than 3,500 percent in reported hacking incidents alone since 2006. Since 2015, phishing incidents increased over 2,300 percent. These numbers emphasize the warning to beware of emails or texts requesting personal information..."

So, fraudsters have tricked many North Carolina residents and employees into both opening fraudulent e-mail and text messages, and then responding by disclosing sensitive personal information. Not good.

Details about the proposed legislation:

"... named the Act to Strengthen Identity Theft Practices (ASITP), announced by Representative Jason Saine and Attorney General Josh Stein, attempts to combat the data breach epidemic by expanding North Carolina’s breach notification obligations, while reducing the time businesses have to comply with notification to the affected population and to the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office. If enacted, this new legislation will be one of the most aggressive U.S. breach notification statutes... The Fact Sheet concerning the ASITP as published by the North Carolina Attorney General proposes that the AG take a more direct role in the investigation of data breaches closer to their time of discovery...  To accomplish this goal, the ASITP proposes a significantly shorter period of time for an entity to provide notification to the affected population and to the North Carolina Attorney General. Currently, North Carolina’s statute mandates that notification be made to affected individuals and the Attorney General without “unreasonable delay.” Under the ASITP, the new deadline for all notifications would be 15 days following discovery of the data security incident. In addition to being the shortest deadline in the nation, it is important to note that notification vendors typically require 5 business days to process, print and mail notification letters... The proposed legislation also seeks to (1) expand the definition of “protected information” to include medical information and insurance account numbers, and (2) penalize those who fail to maintain reasonable security procedures by charging them with a violation under the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act for each person whose information is breached..."

Good. The National Law Review article also compared the breach notification deadlines across all 50 states and territories. It is worth a look to see how your state compares. A comparison of selected states:

Time After Discovery of Breach	Selected States/Territories
10 calendar days	Puerto Rico (Dept. of Consumer Affairs)
15 calendar days	North Carolina (Proposed)
15 business	California (Protected Health Information)
30 calendar days	Florida
45 calendar days	Ohio, Maryland
90 calendar days	Connecticut
Most expedient time & without unreasonable delay	California (other), Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico (other)
As soon as possible	Texas

To learn more, download the North Carolina Security Breach Report 2017 (Adobe PDF), and the ASITP Fact Sheet (Adobe PDF).