Other than empowering State Attorney Generals to investigate and pursue legal action against violating companies, the primary purpose of data breach notification laws is to ensure that if personal information belonging to platform users and service consumers is compromised, then the target of the breach is under obligation to duly notify any person whose data has been leaked.
This article argues that Australia's recently-passed data breach notification legislation, the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2017 (Cth), and its coming into force in 2018, makes an internationally important, yet imperfect, contribution to data breach notification law.
Firstly, some context to data breach notification provisions is offered, which are designed to address some of the problems data breaches cause for data privacy and information security.
Notification Laws: Every state in the U.S., with the exception of Alabama and South Dakota, has a data breach notification law in place.
Do the third-party contracts contain proper data breach notification, audit rights, indemnification and other provisions?
Stroz Friedberg recently found that data breaches remain largely hidden – why is this, and is it about time for some data breach notification laws?
Britain, Germany and France all have different forms of mandatory data breach notification laws that require individuals affected by data breaches to be informed.
Encryption: California led the data breach notification law effort by passing, in 2002, a law requiring businesses and government agencies to notify California residents of data security breaches.
While data breach notification requirements are likely to be a positive step for data security, further reform is probably necessary to ensure strong cybersecurity.
Though various state laws exist to govern data breach notification, Leahy believes a national standard would streamline data hygiene practices.
