By Naeisha Rose
After the six weeks it reportedly took for Equifax, a credit reporting company, to release information about the July data breach of personal information for its 143 million customers, state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) has introduced three pieces of legislation to protect customers.
“From the initial Equifax hack to the company’s inadequate response, it is clear that New York state should be doing much more to incentivized businesses to better protect comsumer data,” said Comrie, the ranking member on the Consumer Protection Committee.
Comrie’s first piece of legislation requires consumer credit reporting agencies to disclose data breaches within 15 days of discovery. His second proposal is for automatic security freezes on consumer credit reports and waives thr the fee for consumers to unfreeze their credit report. The last provision introduced is a clear regulatory mandate over consumer credit reporting agencies to the Department of Financial Services. This means lawmakers will know for future reference that the DFS will be responsible for monitoring such cases down the road.
“In the ever-evolving world of emerging technology, it is imperative that safeguards are in place to prevent personal information like Social Security numbers and banking information from so easily ending up in the hands of hackers,” Comrie said.
Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose
