Gautham Nagesh reports: Senior Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee introduced a bill on Thursday that would require businesses and nonprofits to implement strong security features in the event of a data breach. Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Commerce Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) unveiled the Data Breach and Security Notification…
Category: Federal
Closing a Door on Child Identity Theft
The Identity Theft Resource Center offers a solution to the problem that has made headlines this week — young children have their pristine SSN misused to create credit histories for those who have poor credit ratings, are illegal immigrants, or have other illegal intent: Since the 1980’s, children in the US have been issued Social…
Petri bill would enlist IRS against identity theft
U.S. Rep. Tom Petri is introducing federal legislation to fix a loophole that the IRS claims prevents it from informing people if the IRS detects that their Social Security Number has been fraudulently used… … One resident of Princeton, Wis., learned that he was a victim of the fraud as a result of a call…
No more anonymous “private practice” on HHS breach list
HHS has now started revealing the names of the HIPAA-covered entities who had previously been listed only as “private practice” in their list of those having breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. PHIprivacy.net had been one of a number of entities that had complained about private practices being shielded, but OCR had interpreted the Privacy…
White House seeks comment on trusted ID plan
Grant Gross reports: The White House is seeking comment on a draft plan for establishing a trusted identity system online, with the goal of making Internet transactions more secure and convenient. Howard Schmidt, the White House cybersecurity coordinator and special assistant to President Barack Obama, released a draft version of the National Strategy for Trusted…
OCR drafts guidelines for security risk analysis
Mary Mosquera reports: The Health & Human Services Department published draft guidance to help healthcare providers and payers figure out what is expected of them in doing a risk analysis of their protected patient health information. The security rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires that providers, payment plans and their…