Data theft prompting a drive for legislation

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The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group in San Diego, has counted 80 data breaches in the United States since February, involving the personal information of more than 50 million people. The sensitive data - names, Social Security and credit card numbers, dates of birth, home addresses - have either been lost by or stolen from companies and institutions that compile such data.

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Companies that compile, trade, and store consumer data, while largely resigned to the idea that new legislation will hold them to a higher standard for security, want to minimize the impact of any new law, maximize their discretion when it comes to notifying consumers of breaches and limit their liability when they do spring leaks.

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"Industry hopes to use the furor over breaches as a way to pass a modest federal reform that just happens to also permanently restrict the states from passing virtually any financial privacy or identity theft laws," said Edmund Mierzwinski, the consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, based in Washington.

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Ansanelli says the biggest problem with data security is the patchwork of laws governing too many narrowly sliced industries and too many different situations, when it is really all about the data.

"Confusion," he said, "is the enemy of consumer protection."
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More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/01/business/secure.t.php

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Please read the entire article, it's really difficult to understand what's happening with this using only the four paragraphs allowed.