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NAFCU's Carrie Hunt thanked a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee for launching efforts to find a legislative solution to the recent onslaught of data breaches, beginning with a hearing tomorrow, and offered some guiding suggestions on what should be addressed.

"NAFCU member credit unions and their members have suffered greatly at the hands of negligent entities and have long sought legislation that would ensure retailers abide by a federal data security standard to better protect consumers," Hunt, NAFCU's senior vice president of government affairs and general counsel, wrote to Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, and Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Friday.

Hunt suggested several areas that should be included in a legislative solution to address data breaches, including:

• breached entities should be accountable for costs resulting from their negligence;
• consumers must be notified of breaches and be aware of retailers' data security policies;
• account servicers should be notified; and
• retailers should be held to account for violating prohibitions on data retention.

NAFCU, with other financial trade groups on Friday, sent a similar letter to the subcommittee in preparation for tomorrow's hearing.

Also tomorrow, NAFCU will be monitoring a House Financial Services Committee hearing on sustainable housing finance and will hear testimony from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt.