A proposed California law, the Consumer Data Breach Protection Act (A.B. 1710),¹ has the potential to upend the calculus of determining liability after retail data breaches, create additional data security requirements for retailers and other consumer-facing businesses operating in California, and establish new standards for data breach reporting for breaches affecting California residents. The bill, introduced by California State Assemblymen Bob Wieckowski and Roger Dickinson in February 2014 and currently pending before the California Assembly Committee on the Judiciary, may in part represent an effort to respond to the recent data breaches affecting Target Corp. and Neiman Marcus Ltd., and aims to strengthen one of the most prescriptive state statutes already in existence.

The heightened concern over data privacy in recent months might enable the passage of the bill, which is a variation of past bills that were vetoed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.² If passed, A.B. 1710 would place California alongside Washington, Minnesota, and Nevada as the states mandating particular data security provisions with respect to payment card data,³ and would increase the data breach reporting requirements and liability associated with breaches for entities doing business in California.
Continue Reading Proposed California Law Would Impose Data Breach Liability on Retailers and Create More Stringent Data Security Requirements for Businesses