With data breaches increasing, states continue to push for consumer notification requirements. Last week, New Mexico passed the Data Breach Notification Act, which New Mexico credit unions urged for four years.
Paul Stull, president/CEO of Credit Union Association of New Mexico, said New Mexicans are safer with the passage of the Data Breach Notification Act. He added for too long, New Mexico consumers served identity theft and fraud targets because there was no alert system in place following a compromise.
“New Mexico Credit Unions fought for this protection for four years and, thanks in large part to our partnership with Leverage Point and the support from NM citizens and CU members, the 40-0 passage is a strong warning to fraudsters that New Mexico is now on alert.” Albuquerque, N.M.-based Leverage Point is a Public Affairs & Advocacy firm that specializes in Credit Unions.
New Mexico House Bill 15, called the Data Breach Notification Act, requires any entity that gathers and stores personal information, to warn people of a compromise. A business would have 30 days to alert consumers of a potential breach if the business believes there is a serious risk of identity theft or fraud as a result. If the business doesn't comply with the law, it could be fined up to $150,000.
New Mexico state representative Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, the bill's sponsoring said, “New Mexico is one of two states, Arkansas is the other, that do not have a data breach bill.”
So far it falls back to individual states to protect consumers. “There is no federal law for data breach. If we remember, Target had a lot of information stolen. This would just mean that if you lose data such as that, you will work with the attorney general and notify New Mexico customers that their information has been lost.”
A New York state regulation, which took effect March 1, requires financial institutions to provide minimum cybersecurity standards and report breaches to regulators in an effort to limit consumer losses.
As of March 21, the total number of reported breaches now totals 353, a 56.2% increase over last year's record pace for the same time period (226) captured, according to the 2017 ITRC Breach Report, from Scottsdale, Ariz.-based CyberScout and San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center. The breaches include more than 1.3 million records exposed.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to CUTimes.com, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited CUTimes.com content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
