In a speech at the Federal Trade Commission Monday, President Obama will announce new cybersecurity proposals, including the Personal Data Notification & Protection Act, which contains a notification requirement.

“This proposal clarifies and strengthens the obligations companies have to notify customers when their personal information has been exposed, including establishing a 30-day notification requirement from the discovery of a breach, while providing companies with the certainty of a single, national standard. The proposal also criminalizes illicit overseas trade in identities,” a White House Fact Sheet said.

In an effort to prevent identity theft, the White House announced that the $29 billion State Employees' Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C., and JPMorganChase are joining the list of financial institutions offering FICO scores for free.

USAA and State Employees' Credit Union will also offer free credit scores to their members, and Ally Financial is further widening the community of companies taking this step by making credit scores available to their auto loan customers, the White House Fact Sheet said.

“Through this effort over half of all adult Americans with credit scores will now have access to this tool to help spot identity theft, through their banks, card issuers, or lenders,” the White House Fact Sheet said.

Obama is also set to propose the Student Digital Privacy Act, which the White House said would help ensure that any data collected in the educational context is used only for education.

This bill, modeled on a landmark California statute, builds on the recommendations of the White House Big Data and Privacy review released earlier this year, according to the White House.

“[The bill] would prevent companies from selling student data to third parties for purposes unrelated to the educational mission and from engaging in targeted advertising to students based on data collected in school – while still permitting important research initiatives to improve student learning outcomes, and efforts by companies to continuously improve the effectiveness of their learning technology products,” the White House said.

John McKechnie, partner with the Washington-based lobby and strategy firm Total Spectrum, told CU Times, “Consumers have a right to know about a data breach affecting their personal information, and it's time the retail industry was held accountable. This proposal is something that credit unions can get behind — hopefully it will be the start of Congressional action on data security legislation that has real teeth.”

NAFCU President/CEO Dan Berger was also supportive of the measure, but added there was some room for improvement.

“NAFCU appreciates the President seeking better and more timely notification by the merchants and retailers. That's a huge step in the right direction. We still would like to see the retailers pay for all the costs associated with re-issuing of cards as well as any fraud costs when they are responsible for a data breach,” he said.

CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle said CUNA welcomes Obama's engagement in tackling the issue of data breaches.

“We hope that any legislation that is enacted requires merchants to follow the same type of data security standards that credit unions and other financial institutions must follow, enables consumers to be notified in a timely manner, and ensures that credit unions are reimbursed for costs they incur as a result of merchant data breaches – all issues CUNA has been voicing to Congress,” he said.

Instant Insights /

Obama Announces New Data Security Proposal

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