Security Breach Notification Becomes More Complex For Employers

With new and sophisticated schemes perpetrated by hackers and scammers, and sensitive personal information becoming increasingly accessible to numerous insiders, it is only a matter of time before most employers will be required to notify employees of a data breach. According to a report released by the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of U.S. data breaches tracked in 2016 reached an all-time high of 1,093, an increase of 40% over the near-record high of 780 reported data breaches in 2015.

For all employers, and particularly multi-state ones, the state breach notification laws complicate the employer's response to a security breach because an appropriate response requires compliance with the breach notification law of each state where affected individuals reside. This web recently became even more entangling as New Mexico became the 48th state to enact a data breach notification law, Virginia took the lead in expanding its law to address the recent explosion