Major data breaches continue to occur at an alarming rate and identity theft is on the rise across the country, but eleven US states still have no formal data breach disclosure laws on the books. This lack of legislation could be putting residents at a higher risk of falling victim to identity thieves.
California was the first state to enact laws that spelled out how companies must disclose data breaches to impacted consumers in an attempt to help prevent potential identity theft. The ground breaking law, known as the California Information Practice Act or Senate Bill 1386, requires any company that stores the personal information of California residents to notify those consumers if their personal information has been or may have been exposed to identity thieves. Personal information includes things like your name, credit card numbers, social security number, account numbers or PINs.
Thirty-seven other states have followed California’s lead and passed data breach related policies that require similar disclosure to protect the residents of their states. However, New Mexico, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Alaska still have no disclosure requirements in place to protect consumers.
A twelfth state, Oklahoma, only requires disclosure by government agencies and not private companies in the case of exposure of personal information. Therefore, the protections to Oklahomans are significantly limited in the case of a data breach in the private sector.
It is unclear why these states aren’t moving more aggressively to protect their residents from possible identity theft. However, it is clear that the most important things for consumers that are impacted by a data breach is to have quick and complete disclosure so that they can take steps to safeguard their identity from thieves.
Data breaches that leave consumers vulnerable to identity theft occur much more often than many consumers may realize.  It is estimated that 1 in 3 Americans had some form of personal data exposed in 2007.  It is easy to see why identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States.
The best way to protect yourself from identity theft is by using an  identity theft protection service such that will not only monitoring changes in your credit file but also take proactive measures such as setting fraud locks on your credit report.  Many identity theft protection services will also offer identity theft insurance that will help you recoup expenses related to your identity being stolen in the case that you do fall victim to identity thieves.