California gets a strengthened Breach Notification Law
Governor Brown of California has signed a strengthened breach notification bill, which amends Sections 1798.29 and 1798.82 of the California Civil Code in important ways. Previous versions had been repeatedly vetoed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As described[.DOC] by its sponsor’s office, this law:
Establishes standard, core content — such as the type of information breached, time of breach, and toll-free telephone numbers and addresses of the major credit reporting agencies — for security breach notices in California; Requires public agencies, businesses, and persons subject to California’s security breach notification law, if more than 500 California residents are affected by a single breach, to send an electronic copy of the breach notification to the Attorney General; and, Requires public agencies, businesses and persons subject to California’s security breach notification law, if they are utilizing the substitute notice provisions in current law, to also provide that notification to the Office of Information Security or the Office of Privacy Protection, as applicable.
This makes California the fifteenth (!) state with a central notification provision on the books, the others being: Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Puerto Rico also has such a requirement. Ibid.
I’m looking forward to the resulting information, and I hope California’s Attorney General has the good sense to post all received notification letters. This will undoubtedly be easier for the state than dealing with the inevitable FOIA requests, and serves the public interest by increasing transparency.