THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PRIVACY ACT--H.R. 4380 -- HON. JOHN J. LaFALCE (Extensions of Remarks - May 04, 2000)

[Page: E652]
---

HON. JOHN J. LaFALCE OF NEW YORK IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, May 4, 2000

Mr. LaFALCE. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to enhance the financial privacy rights of all Americans. This legislation, the ``Consumer Financial Privacy Act,'' implements the privacy protections that were announced by President Clinton earlier this week. I am pleased to be joined in sponsoring this legislation by Mr. DINGELL, ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. FRANK, Mr. KANJORSKI, and many other of my House colleagues.

Individual privacy is one of the most important issues before the Congress and an issue of urgent concern for the American people. Clearly everyone should have the right to be left alone if they choose, or to be confident that their financial, medical and other personal information will not be disclosed, sold, or used without their consent.

We live in a world of electronic communications in which intimate details of every individual's financial and private life can be instantaneously transmitted anywhere around the world. This imposes a far greater responsibility on government to protect individual privacy more than ever before. And it is a responsibility that I believe government must fully exercise.

Last year the House enacted significant financial privacy protections as part of broader financial modernization legislation. While these privacy proposals were given little chance for passage a year earlier when I first introduced them, they were adopted by the House with an overwhelming 427-to-1 vote. These financial privacy protections were significant, going well beyond the limited protections in existing law for financial transactions, and well beyond the protections available for most other consumer transactions.

But we never intended last year's legislation to be the ultimate solution on financial privacy, it was only a first step. While it provided important notice and opt-out protections to prevent the selling or sharing of private information among unaffiliated companies, it failed to extend the same protection for information shared between a financial institution and its affiliates. While it prohibited the selling of credit card and account information for marketing, it did not provide a higher level of protection for other sensitive information such as medical or health records or information about payments and transactions. Democrats were united in attempting to add these additional protections to the legislation on the House floor and again in conference. Unfortunately, we were not successful.

The legislation outlined by President Clinton on April 30, 2000, which we are introducing today, completes the promise of that previous effort, and takes another gigantic step toward achieving an absolute right of financial privacy for all Americans. It extends the principles of notice and opt-out for all information shared between a financial institution and all affiliated companies. It provides a higher level of protection, an ``opt in'' requirement, for sensitive medical and health-related information that could affect financial decisions, as well as for individualized information describing spending habits or transactions.

The bill creates new rights for consumers to find out what information is being collected about them by their financial institution and to correct or delete inaccurate or outdated information. It requires timely disclosure of an institution's privacy policies to permit consumers to comparison shop among financial service providers that offer the best protections. And it makes these private protections fully enforceable by augmenting the enforcement authority of the Federal Trade Commission and by permitting State Attorneys General to bring legal actions on behalf of state residents to prevent violations.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this is balanced and reasonable legislation that is the product of months of careful consideration. It is legislation that the American people clearly want and deserve. I invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who believe that every American has a right to their personal privacy to join with me in supporting this important and much needed legislation.
END