California Seeks To Close Loopholes In Its Data Breach Notification Law

California pursues legislation to close loopholes in its existing data breach notification law. Current state law in California does not require businesses to notify consumers when their passport and biometric data is exposed or stolen during a data breach. The proposed law would close that loophole.

The legislation was prompted by the gigantic data breach at Marriott's Starwood Hotels unit. The sensitive information of more than 327 million guests was accessed by unauthorized persons. The data accessed -- and probably stolen -- included guests' names, addresses, at least 25 million passport numbers, and more. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the proposed legislation:

"Though [Marriott] did notify consumers of the breach, current law does not require companies to report breaches if only consumers’ passport numbers have been improperly accessed... In 2003, California became the first state to pass a data breach notification law requiring companies to disclose breaches of personal information to California consumers whose personal information was, or was reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person... This bill would update that law to include passport numbers as personal information protected under the statute. Passport numbers are unique, government-issued, static identifiers of a person, which makes them valuable to criminals seeking to create or build fake profiles and commit sophisticated identity theft and fraud. AB 1130 would also update the statute to include protection for a person’s unique biometric information, such as a fingerprint, or image of a retina or iris."

Assembly member Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) introduced the proposed legislation to the California House, and said in a statement:

“There is a real danger when our personal information is not protected by those we trust... Businesses must do more to protect personal data, and I am proud to stand with Attorney General Becerra in demanding greater disclosure by a company when a data breach has occurred. AB 1130 will increase our efforts to protect consumers from fraud and affirms our commitment to demand the strongest consumer protections in the nation."

Good. There are too many examples of companies failing to announce data breaches affecting companies. TechCrunch reported that AB 1130:

"... comes less than a year after state lawmakers passed the California Privacy Act into law, greatly expanding privacy rights for consumers — similar to provisions provided to Europeans under the newly instituted General Data Protection Regulation. The state privacy law, passed in June and set to go into effect in 2020, was met with hostility by tech companies headquartered in the state... Several other states, like Alabama, Florida and Oregon, already require data breach notifications in the event of passport number breaches, and also biometric data in the case of Iowa and Nebraska, among others..."

Kudos to California for moving to better protect consumers. Hopefully, other states will also update their breach notification laws.