What I wouldn't give for some time...

Actually, I know very well what I wouldn't give up for some time. I wouldn't give up my productivity at work, or my relaxing evenings with my wife. However, if I would give those things up, I could write a great blog post on proposed changes to California's security breach notification act. Instead, I'll just mention this article from Computer World, and quickly note that the proposed changes require businesses that suffer breaches to report them to a centralized authority, not just to the people whose data is compromised.

Of course, if I were writing a really good blog, post, I wouldn't just talk about the proposed changes, but instead I'd try and put them in broader context, perhaps by referring to this post from the Threat Level blog, which describes a panel discussion on whether notification laws "work". I might even have some analysis on the proper way to measure the efficacy of notification laws.

As it is though, I'm not writing that blog post, I'm writing this relatively uncreative excuse for a blog post. Oh well. On the bright side, I'm still a good lawyer by day, and I've had a nice evening with my wife.

Schwarzenegger Rejects New Data Breach Law

The proposed legislation I wrote about here and here, which would have made retailers in California liable for the cost of replacing credit cards of individuals whose data is exposed in the event of a security breach was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger (details in this article from Computer World). In explaining his veto, Schwarzenegger cited private sector efforts to address the risk of data breaches, such as the PCI DSS, and stated that those efforts showed that private actors were well placed to handle this issue without government involvement. Whether you buy that reasoning or not, the bottom line is that the bill is dead, at least for now (though its proponents have vowed to keep fighting). This leaves Minnesota as the only state with a data breach notification law which shifts costs of card replacement from financial instutions to retailers.