Data breach law eyed for USA

Any new data breach notification law passed by Congress should cover all industries that handle consumer data and “leave no holes” that would allow events like last year’s Equifax breach to remain hidden, the National Retail Federation and other groups told federal lawmakers.

“American consumers want to know if their data has been breached no matter where the breach occurs,” the federation’s Vice President and Senior Policy Counsel Paul Martino said in a recent statement.

“No industry should be allowed to keep its data breaches secret,” Martino said in a recently released statment.

Representatives of convenience stores, restaurants, truck stops, gas stations, grocers, real estate agents, franchises, hotels and the travel industry said they support a uniform federal law governing what business must do when credit card or other data is breached but said it should apply to all businesses that handle sensitive consumer data, the annoucement said.