The New York Times recently ran an editorial pointing out how crucial California’s data breach notification law has been in bringing to light the current vulnerabilities of personal information:
Consumers, not data dealers, deserve controlling interest in their vital information [...]
Today the paper published a letter to the editor (dated April 18) from U.S. Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which has jurisdiction over many of the issues involved), in which the Chairman largely agrees with the paper’s sense of the current crisis:
Some say otherwise, and they’ve been pleading their case before my committee lately. But the plain fact is that in our society, our Social Security numbers are the keys to the bank vault for swindlers.
I’m probably going to be a lot more careful about imposing regulation on business and the economy than you would like, but if it takes action to stop the buying and selling of Social Security numbers without the knowledge and agreement of consumers, count me in [...]
Given these comments and his previous remarks, expect to see SSN-related legislation from Chairman Barton before long.