The California privacy circus continued last month when Gov. Gray Davis signed several pieces of legislation into law.
He also sent a letter to the two top Senators on the Senate Banking Committee, urging them not to water down his state's financial privacy and identity theft protections.
In Sacramento, Davis signed:
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SB 186, which contains penalties of up to $1 million per unsolicited e-mail.
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AB 763, which prohibits mailers from sending out any document that contains a social security number if the number is visible without the envelope being opened.
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SB 27, which allows consumers to learn how personal information being held by non-financial institutions is being used, and urges non-financial businesses to provide consumers means to opt out of having their information shared with third parties.
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SB 602, which helps consumer provides a variety of remedies for identity theft, including strengthening law enforcement investigative tools, capping fees at $10 if a consumer wants to freeze his credit file, and prohibiting bars, car dealers and other businesses from collecting information for marketing purposes by swiping driver's licenses.
Davis also signed SB 684, which helps consumers who have had their identities stolen obtain documents from companies that opened fraudulent accounts to thieves, and SB 752, which assists victims of identity theft to clear their name through fingerprint comparison of the thief and victim.
Meanwhile, Davis wrote to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and ranking member Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD).
He asked the committee not to pre-empt the provisions of his state's recently passed financial privacy bill and to treat the California laws as model legislation for the rest of the country.
“If Senate legislation does not explicitly allow states to enact greater privacy protection for consumers, then, at the very least, the bill should include language to ensure that California privacy law and our identity theft laws can be fully implemented,” Davis wrote.
While Shelby did not specifically address Davis' letter during the markup session, he did address reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
The Senate bill being marked up would prevent federal provisions on collecting and using consumer data to be pre-empted by state laws. But the bill does not preclude setting federal standards that are as stringent as those enacted by states, if not more so.
Currently, the Fair Credit Reporting Act does contain prohibitions on states' rights to enact laws that supercede federal standards. But these provisions are set to expire on Jan. 1.
According to a statement posted on the committee's Web site, during his remarks Shelby said that credit markets “operate on a national basis and are crucial to our economy. While this reporting system has been a vital catalyst for economic growth, the system — and the regulatory structure of the system, — contains deficiencies that must be addressed.”
Shelby went on to say that the current bill “provides greater flexibility to assure that there is a mechanism to ensure that consumers' protections develop with market practices.
“The goal was to strike the proper balance between protecting the rights of consumers and the efficient operation of our markets,” he said. “I believe this bill does that.”
Another committee member, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) echoed support of the bill.
“I am happy to see that we are permanently extending the pre-exemptions found in the [Fair Credit Reporting Act]” she said.
Stabenow continued, “I believe that after a 7-year trial, the case has been made that we need one permanent uniform national standard in these particular areas of law.”
