House Panel Moves Data Security Bills
The House Energy and Commerce Committee easily approved two bills on Wednesday designed to require companies that store private information to better protect it against security breaches, and to warn consumers about potential dangers of downloading the "peer-to-peer" software that has been implicated in such unauthorized breaches, CongressDaily reports. The Data Accountability and Trust Act and the Informed P2P User Act, passed on voice votes with no individual amendments.
The Data Accountability and Trust Act requires entities that hold personal information to adopt appropriate security measures to protect it. In addition, if a breach occurs, such as inadvertent release of tax records or medical information, they must notify consumers. The FTC would be empowered to enforce the law, with penalties up to $5 million for violations. The Informed P2P User Act requires installers of peer-to-peer software, that allows many people to access information contained on a personal computer, to notify computer users that the software is about to be installed.
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