Obama announces legislation on data protection violations: What does this mean for you

Obama announces legislation on data protection violations: What does this mean for you -

During a speech to the Federal Trade Commission Washington Monday, President Obama announced several proposals for privacy? to help Americans cope with the increase of data breaches and identity theft. According to the Washington Times, the proposals he outlined will help to protect consumer privacy and students in the US This speech is one more suited to cybersecurity issues that the president will in the week before his condition of the Union address on January 20

what the new data breach protection legislation do?

If the proposed law is passed by Congress and made into a law, it will require companies in the US to inform customers within 30 days after a data breach was discovered or their identities were stolen. Currently, each state has different laws in place to deal with data breaches. This federal law would replace state laws and do the same across the country. Last year, we saw several cases where companies were waiting to inform customers of a data breach for several months. A federal standard would make it illegal to do so, thus limiting the time of data thieves window should use the information from the victim without his knowledge. Many retailers voted in favor of this strong legislation on the protection of the data breach, including members of the National Retail Federation.

In addition, Obama has proposed to make it illegal for companies to sell the personal information of students for anything that is not related to education. Under this law, students would also be protected from targeted advertising based on the data collected while they are at school. College students are often inundated with marketing surveys and paperwork requesting personal information, so that this law would be an important step to protect against the misuse of such data.

Are the new laws enough to protect you?

Unfortunately, although the 30-day notification requirement will allow people to alert timely data breaches, it will not protect you from a violation. If you are informed that your information has been exposed, it is essential to take all the steps you can to protect yourself - such as tracking your bank statements and credit card, looking for suspicious emails and phone calls and take care to shred all sensitive documents before throwing them in the trash.

One of the biggest ways to protect yourself against data breaches and identity theft threat is to sign up for a service protection against identity theft. These not only monitor the black market Internet services and public folders to ensure that your personal information is not misused, but many also offer three offices monitoring credit report and helps to restore if your identity is to be compromised.

Learn more about how these services can help by visiting our identity notice of protection against theft.