President Obama this week called for federal legislation that would require businesses to inform customers about security breaches within 30 days.
At this point, security breach notification laws are handled at the state level. According to September data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, 47 states, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have data breach notification laws on the books.
Taking it up at the federal level "clarifies and strengthens the obligations companies have to notify customers when their personal information has been exposed...while providing companies with the certainty of a single, national standard," the White House said today.
Obama's proposal would also criminalize illicit overseas trade in identities.
Calls for a national notification law are nothing new; Attorney General Holder made the same request last year after the Target breach.
But after another year of data breaches, from Home Depot to JPMorgan (see video below), President Obama is again renewing the call for federal legislation. But can Congress get its act together and actually pass something? Republicans are now in control of the House and Senate, and the GOP has given many of the president's proposals the cold shoulder in recent years.
Meanwhile, another proposal from Obama, The Student Digital Privacy Act, would ban companies from selling data collected from students to third parties for non-educational purposes, and also prohibit targeted ads based on school-related activity.
Seventy-five companies have already signed a Student Privacy Pledge, including Microsoft and Apple.
On the federal side, the Department of Energy and the Federal Smart Grid Task Force today released a code of conduct for how utilities will use customer data, including energy usage info.
According to the New York Times, Obama's announcement today is part of a week-long push for cyber-security related reforms ahead of his Jan. 20 State of the Union address. Obama is also scheduled to be in Iowa on Wednesday to discuss increasing access to high-speed broadband.