Privacy of Personal Information
The Law
The increase in IDENTITY THEFT crime has caused the enactment of various laws described below. The essence of these laws is to protect the individual from the crime of IDENTITY THEFT by protecting private personal information. Some states have also enacted laws, including the states of California, Wisconsin and Georgia. One of the first and most well known of the laws is HIPAA, which was enacted to protect the privacy of patient information.
HIPAA
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), was enacted in 1996 and includes provisions intended to safeguard the privacy of patient health records. HIPAA is a significant piece of legislation with onerous penalties. For a full text of the SUMMARY OF THE HIPAA PRIVACY RULE from the Department of Human Services, available online go to: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.rtf. See page 14 of this document in regards to shredding information.
.HIPAA LINKS
PENALTIES FOR HIPAA VIOLATIONS:
http://www.utmb.edu/compliance/hipaa/hipaa-overview.htm#penalties
American Medical Association
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/11805.html
Health and Human Services
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.rtf
GLB (Gramm Leach Bliley)
Gramm Leach Bliley (GLB) is another federal law with a much broader scope than HIPAA. This law was designed to compel financial institutions to "respect the privacy of its customers and to protect the security and confidentiality of those customers' non-public personal information." This language suggests that paper documents containing such personal information should also be protected when in use and safely destroyed when no longer current and usable.
GLB LINKS
Senate Banking Committee Report
http://banking.senate.gov/conf/confrpt.htm
Federal Trade Commission Report
http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/glbact
FACTA
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 also known as the FACT Act was signed into law on December 4, 2003. The Act amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act (``FCRA''). The Act contains a number of provisions intended to combat IDENTITY THEFT and consumer fraud and related crimes. Specifically the act requires the destruction of PAPERS CONTAINING CONSUMER INFORMATION. Virtually every business or organization that is bound by this law.
The proposed DISPOSAL RULE
Sec. 682.3 Proper disposal of consumer information.
(a) Standard. Any person who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information, or any compilation of consumer information, for a business purpose must properly dispose of such information by taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to or use of the information in connection with its disposal.
(b) Examples. Reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to or use of consumer information in connection with its disposal would include:
(1) Implementing and monitoring compliance with policies and procedures that require the burning, pulverizing, or shredding of papers containing consumer information so that the information cannot practicably be read or reconstructed.
FACTA LINKS
National Consumer Law Center
http://www.consumerlaw.org/initiatives/facta/nclc_analysis.shtml
Federal Trade Commission
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcrajump.htm
Privacy Rights Organization
http://privacyrights.com/ar/FTC-DocDisposal.htm
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