NORTH CAROLINA BANKING INSTITUTE Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 14 2006 Data Security and Data Breach Notification for Financial Institutions Sean C. Honeywill Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons Recommended Citation Sean C. Honeywill, Data Security and Data Breach Notification for Financial Institutions, 10 N.C. Banking Inst. 269 (2006). Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncbi/vol10/iss1/14 This Notes is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Banking Institute by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Data Security and Data Breach Notification for Financial Institutions I. INTRODUCTION With more than 45 million customer accounts compromised in less than eight months, the year of 2005 may come to be known as the year of the data breach.1 Data losses at well known financial institutions, such as Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wachovia, as well as at data broker companies and third-party service providers, have caused the media, consumers, and the government alike to hone in on data protection measures. The year started with ChoicePoint, a company that compiles consumer data for resale, reporting that thieves posing as legitimate customers had purchased the addresses, social 3 security numbers, and credit reports of around 145,000 consumers. Bank of America then reported losing backup tapes containing the 4 personal account information of 1.2 million federal employees. Next, DSW Shoe Warehouse reported that hackers stole credit and debit card, checking account, and driver's license numbers from a database for 108 5 of the chain's 175 stores, affecting 1.4 million customers.