Public Knowledge and 11 Organizations Raise Concerns over Data Breach Bill

Public Knowledge and 11 other nonprofit organizations sent a letter opposing the draft Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015. The letter was sent to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade of the House Commerce Committee, as that committee is holding a hearing on that bill on March 18. Public Knowledge wrote, "We write to express our strong opposition to the draft Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015. As currently written, the bill severely undercuts communications data breach protections upon which millions of Americans rely, by superseding key parts of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as implemented in rules promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission. Communications record data is among the most private information we have because it easily could reveal the identities of the persons and the places called, and thus reveal the most intimate details of a person's life.

"For decades, the Communications Act has protected this sensitive information about communications network usage. But section 6(c) of the proposed Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015 would replace many of these key protections with weaker standards. To eliminate those data breach protections that consumers currently enjoy under the Communications Act, to take authority from a commission with decades of experience regulating use of personal information by communications providers, to cut back on the FCC’s ability to protect consumers when the FCC has prominently expressed its commitment to protecting them -- these would not merely be a mistake. These would be an affront to the American people’s expectations for privacy and for their communications services."