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October 11, 2017

Credit bureau data security focus of next week's Senate Banking hearing

The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing next Tuesday on consumer data security at the credit bureaus in further follow-up to the Equifax data breach, which affected potentially more than 145 million Americans. NAFCU continues to advocate for a strong national data security standard.

The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern Tuesday.

During the Oct. 17 hearing, Andrew Smith, a partner at Covington & Burling LLP, will testify on behalf of the Consumer Data Industry Association, which has the mission of educating the public, legislators and regulators about responsible use of consumer data. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is also set to testify on the importance of upholding consumers' right to privacy.

In addition to obtaining personal information – including Social Security numbers – of 145.5 million Americans, Equifax recently announced hackers gained access to driver's license information of almost 11 million U.S. consumers. Reports indicate this will likely lead to more fraudulent activity, as driver's license information is often used to verify a person's identity when disputing credit-report information.

NAFCU has been a leading advocate for a national data security standard that holds all entities that handle personal financial data to the same standards as credit unions and other depository institutions under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). It has called for action to ensure that credit unions do not bear the cost of negligent data practices by entities like Equifax.

The association also advocates that credit rating agencies already subject to parts of the GLBA, like Equifax, be held to the same regulatory requirements as depository institutions.