Old arguments may bog down US data breach notification legislation

A drive in the U.S. Congress to pass a law requiring companies with data breaches to notify affected customers may get bogged down in old arguments.

Lawmakers and witnesses at a Tuesday hearing argued about whether a national data breach notification law should preempt 47 existing state laws and whether breached companies should be required to notify customers even when they determine their breaches are unlikely to cause harm.

Disagreements over those two issues have been part of the reason why Congress hasn’t passed a national data breach notification law over the past decade. But the time has come for Congress to pass a national law, members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee’s commerce subcommittee said.

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