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New Law Intended To Combat Identity Theft and Protect Consumers Privacy:

As of June 14, 2005, the FTC’s (Federal Trade Commission) new FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act) law went into effect. The FACTA law requires any business that has information about an individual, whether in paper, electronic, or other form that is a consumer report (also known as a credit report) or is derived from a consumer report. It requires that any person or company that possesses or maintains such information to take reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to or use of the information in connections with its disposal.

The FACTA law will affect any person or business that maintains consumer information such as employers, lenders, real estate mortgage brokers, car dealers, to cite a few  examples. This law will now join other recent laws which protects businesses and consumers from fraud and identity theft. For the Healthcare industry there is the HIPPA  (Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act) law and for the financial services industry there is the Graham Leach Bliley Act.

According to a study released by the FTC in September of 2003, nearly 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft in the previous year alone. US businesses lost $47 billion while consumers lost another $5 billion as a result of identity theft during the same period.

Businesses must be compliant by June 1, 2005, by implementing a document destruction policy by contracting with a shredding company or other data destruction company or they must do it themselves. Violating the law includes actual damages, statutory damages, up to $1,000 punitive damages per violation (with no cap on class action damages) attorney fees, and civil penalties up to $2,500.

Don’t run the risk with non-compliance, call America Shredding today!