Obama calls for data breach notification law, privacy bill of rights

U.S. President Barack Obama will push Congress to pass a law requiring companies that are victims of data breaches to notify affected consumers within 30 days and a second law that gives consumers more control over their digital data, he said.

Obama will call for a national data breach notification law and a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights in ID theft and privacy initiatives in his State of the Union speech Jan. 20, he said Monday at the Federal Trade Commission.

Neither of those proposals is a new onethe White House first called for a consumer privacy bill of rights in February 2012 and has backed a national breach notification law for yearsbut Congress has failed to pass those proposals. With a growing number of data breaches coming to light, its important for Congress to protect Internet users from a direct threat by hackers, Obama said.

If were going to be connected, then we need to be protected, Obama said. As Americans, we shouldnt have to forfeit our basic privacy when we go online to do business.

More than 45 states have their own data breach notification laws, but theres no national standard. A lack of a national standard confuses consumers and raises compliance costs for companies, Obama said. Sometimes folks dont even find out their credit card information has been stolen until they see charges on their bill, and then its too late, he said.

The privacy bill of rights would allow consumers to decide what pieces of their personal data are collected by companies and decide how the data is used. The legislation would allow consumers to prohibit companies that collect their data for one purpose to use it for another purpose, Obama said.

Obama will also push Congress to pass a student digital privacy bill that would limit companies that collect data as part of educational services to use it only for educational purposes. The proposal would prohibit companies from selling student data to third parties for non-educational purposes and from using data collected in an educational setting to deliver targeted advertising.

Educational technology is delivering great benefits, but some companies have explored other ways to use the collected data, Obama said. We want our kids privacy protected, wherever they sign on or log on, including at school, he added. Were saying that data collected from students in the classroom should only be used for educational purposes to teach our children, not to market to our children.

Obama noted that 75 educational tech companies have signed a pledge to protect parents, teachers and students from the misuse of personal data. Obama called on other educational tech companies to sign the pledge.

If you dont joint this effort, we intend to make sure those schools and those parents know you havent joined this effort, he said.

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Obama calls for data breach notification law, privacy bill of rights

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