Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce the Data Breach Notification Act. This is a commonsense bill that is aimed at protecting personal information and preventing identity theft. The bill would require businesses and government agencies to notify individuals when their sensitive personal information has been exposed in a data breach. As many of you know, I have been urging the Senate to adopt this legislation since 2003, when California first imposed a State notification requirement. That legislation has helped consumers in my State. Federal data breach law would provide uniformity and protect consumers throughout the country. With every year that passes, the evidence in support of this legislation has only continued to mount. The cost of identity theft is enormous--estimated at more than $50 billion per year. Some of the costs fall on businesses and banks, which suffer losses from fraudulent transactions. Some of the costs are also borne by consumers, whose finances and credit ratings are disrupted. Since the beginning of 2005, over 240 million data records containing individuals' sensitive personal data have been exposed in data breaches. It seems that not a week goes by without news of another security breach that exposes names, addresses, birth dates, social security numbers, or other personal data. These breaches have spawned a vast online market in stolen identities.”