InfoBytes Blog
Legislators, State Attorneys General, and Consumers React to Credit Reporting Agency Data Breach
As previously reported in InfoBytes, a major credit reporting agency suffered a data breach from mid-May through the end of July that impacted approximately 143 million U.S. consumers. Shortly after the agency disclosed the breach, several Republican and Democratic lawmakers promised legislative action. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Haw.) reintroduced the Stop Errors in Credit Use and Reporting (SECURE) Act to address these issues. In addition, two committees—the House Financial Services Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee—both announced plans to hold hearings on the breach (dates still to be released). Separately, Representative Ted Lieu (D-Cal.) sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee requesting a hearing to investigate how and why the data breach occurred, and what measures can be taken to prevent future incidents.
At least two class action lawsuits have been filed—in Georgia and Oregon—as a result of the breach, and several state attorneys general, including New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, have launched investigations into the matter. The CFPB also released a blog post for consumers on ways to identify signs of fraud or identity theft.
Notably, on September 11, the agency issued an update for consumers announcing that “in response to consumer inquiries,” the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in its terms of use will not “apply to this cybersecurity incident.” The CFPB’s final arbitration rule, which prohibits the use of mandatory pre-disputer arbitration clauses, has been a point of considerable debate this summer, with the House voting to repeal the proposed rule and the Senate introducing a similar measure (see InfoBytes post here), while a coalition of state attorneys general have issued support for the proposed rule (see InfoBytes post here).