Sean Patrick Maloney: “last year H.R. 10 passed this Chamber by one vote. In that version of Financial Modernization, there were no privacy…”

“last year H.R. 10 passed this Chamber by one vote. In that version of Financial Modernization, there were no privacy provisions. This year things have changed. There are privacy provisions in the base text and there is this amendment which, if adopted, will make this one of the strongest privacy bills to involve the financial services industry. I would like to thank all of the members who have worked on crafting this amendment, including Representatives Frost, LaFalce, Pryce, and Oxley. A few days ago I submitted to this informal privacy working group a suggested amendment. My proposal would make certain that if an affiliate in a holding company were sold to another entity, only the information about their own customers could be transferred. No information about customers in the original holding company are allowed to be shared with the sold entity's new affiliates unless they were already a customer. This is an important privacy protection and I was pleased that the authors agreed to add it into this amendment. Perhaps the most important part of this amendment are the strong disclosure provisions. This bill requires financial institutions to annually disclose to their customers their policies practices for collecting and protecting the customer's private information. Financial Modernization means more choices for consumers, and part of that choice should include the privacy policies of the firm which is trying to attract their business.”