By Tyler Pager
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama called for new legislation Monday to impose tougher regulations on privacy hacks and identity theft in an effort to create national standards and improve consumer confidence following major security breaches in the last year.
“This is a direct threat to the economic security of American families, and we’ve got to stop it,” Obama said in a speech at the Financial Trade Commission. “The more we do to protect consumer information and privacy, the harder it is for hackers to damage our businesses and hurt our economy.”
Obama’s announcement begins a week of events focused on cybersecurity and privacy reforms ahead of his State of the Union address on Jan. 20. The events come after a year of massive hacks at U.S. companies including Sony, Home Depot and Target.
The Personal Data Notification and Protection Act would mandate companies report to their consumers within 30 days of discovering their information had been hacked. The proposal also criminalizes selling cyber data of U.S. citizens overseas.
Obama also called on Congress to review the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which set governing principles for data collection and online interactions. Within 45 days, the administration will release a revised legislative proposal, which was originally drafted in 2012.
“We pioneered the Internet, but we also pioneered the Bill of Rights and the sense that each of us as individuals have a sphere of privacy around us that should not be breached,” he said.
Obama is bringing new life to the privacy bill of rights, said J. Trevor Hughes, president and CEO of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. But he is more pessimistic about Congress passing the legislation.
“Broad based privacy legislation is a very hard thing to get done and just given the political structure of things I think it is perhaps less than likely that we will see as much momentum or traction on that,” Hughes said.
While Obama was speaking, hackers took over the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the U.S. Central Command, with pro-ISIS tweets and videos flowing freely on the government accounts. Both accounts have since been suspended.
The president also discussed measures to prevent identify theft, highlighting firms making credit scores available free to customers. The effort will give more than half of all adult Americans free access to their credit scores.
Additionally, Obama introduced the Student Data Privacy Act, which aims to protect students’ online information collected from educational tools and resources. The act, which is modeled off similar California legislation, would prevent third-party companies from accessing students’ information.
These efforts build upon Obama’s BuySecure Initiative, which he announced in October. The policy aims to secure Federal government payments by using chip and PIN technology for government credit cards.
Hughes said Obama’s strong position on improving privacy concerns is notable and reflective of a growing trend as companies look to bolster privacy measures.
“I don’t think we have seen a president in the past few decades that has really stood up and said something so specifically, so clearly and so broadly on the topic,” Hughes said.
Obama will speak Tuesday at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center on efforts to increase cybersecurity information sharing between the government and the private sector.
