News Room: AB 700: Security Breaches

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Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain writes that the next governor needs to defend a state’s right to protect personal data.

In California, privacy is a fundamental right. This state has a constitutional amendment identifying privacy as inalienable. And for better or worse, legislators don’t see themselves as potted plants. Some actually care about state law. All that means the next governor will grapple with privacy or lack of it right here in Sacramento.

“States often have to lead to get attention at the federal level,” said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto,  the Legislature’s most prolific author of bills that seek to provide at least a thin veil of privacy. Simitian helped push a first-in-the-nation requirement that companies tell us when a security breach has spewed our personal information into other people’s hands. Because of a 2004 Simitian bill, California requires companies doing business in the state to post privacy policies on their websites. Lately, Simitian has sought to limit the misuse of radio frequency identification. Now Simitian is carrying legislation to protect people who use FasTrak to pay bridge tolls.

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Sacramento – The California State Senate approved today SB 20, legislation by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), which aims to strengthen existing privacy protection laws for California consumers. The new law builds on legislation authored by Simitian in 2002 that requires a business or government agency that incurs a data breach to provide notice to the individual(s) whose information was compromised. More than 40 states have adopted similar legislation since that time, largely based on the California measure. read more ...

Six years after California enacted the country's first data breach notification law, many state residents have received letters warning them that their data was exposed by a breach but usually they don't know how or how long, experts said at a privacy conference on Friday. That would change with the passage of a measure proposed by California State Sen. Joe Simitian, who authored the country's first bill requiring companies to notify customers when a breach has occurred that exposes their data. Senate Bill 20 would require that notification letters to consumers have a standard set of information such as information about the timing and circumstances of the breach. read more ...

What if your credit card details, address, date of birth, bank account data - everything about you that an identity thief could possibly want - were stolen by hackers or accidentally leaked onto the internet by companies you thought you could trust? If you think that sounds bad, it might just have happened to you already and if you live in the UK you would never find out about it. Until, that is, you discover someone has used your details in an identity fraud. read more ...

Santa Cruz –The Santa Cruz County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced today that State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) is being honored for his work to protect the privacy rights of Californians. Simitian will accept the “True Patriot” award at the chapter’s annual awards ceremony in Santa Cruz on Sunday. read more ...

Palo Alto – State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) today received the 2007 Award for Excellence in Public Policy at the opening session of the 16th annual RSA Conference, the world’s largest event for cyber security professionals to share and exchange ideas to address identity theft and security breaches. This year’s conference is expected to draw 15,000 computer security experts from around the world. read more ...

Palo Alto – The Commonwealth Club, in partnership with the Stanford Macintosh Users Group (SMUG), welcomes Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to their February 2 meeting which will be held at Stanford University. Simitian will address the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum on “Online Privacy Protection: How a Bill Becomes a Law (Really).” read more ...

Palo Alto – Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) today was named by Scientific American magazine as one of the “Scientific American 50” – the noted magazine’s annual list recognizing outstanding leadership in science and technology from the past year. Simitian was the only elected official in the country to be so honored. read more ...

Sacramento - Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Privacy, announced today that Governor Davis signed Simitian’s bill (Assembly Bill 68) to protect the privacy of online users. read more ...

Sacramento – Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Privacy, announced today that his four-bill package to protect consumer privacy has cleared the Legislature and is pending the Governor’s signature. The centerpiece of the bill package is AB 2297, the Online Privacy and Disclosure Act of 2002. If signed by the Governor, AB 2297 will be among the most substantial state-initiated online privacy legislation in the United States. read more ...