SALT LAKE CITY- (News4Utah) – More national retailers are apologizing after being hit by a data breach.
In the latest hack, five million credit and debit cards that were used at about 130 Saks and Lord and Taylor locations were stolen.
This follows trouble with a number of other national retailers, and the massive data breach at Equifax just last fall.
“Well over 150 million Americans had their data compromised,” said Representative Jim Dunnigan, (R) Taylorsville.
That incident prompted Dunnigan to sponsor House Bill 45.
It addresses the fees credit bureaus charge to freeze and thaw your credit account.
“You have to pay $10 to freeze it. Then, if you want to thaw it you have to pay another $10, and there’s three credit bureaus. So, three times 10, that’s $30 to freeze and $30 to thaw,” he said.
But, not for long. The new law requires the credit bureaus to do that for free for Utah consumers.
It also requires them to quickly process each request through an app.
“When I first started working with the credit bureaus they said, oh, lets just put a credit alert on, that will take care of it. I said, we are so far beyond that with all the data breaches that are going on. And, I actually love the app concept. Within 15 minutes it’s frozen, and within 15 minutes it’s thawed and people can access your credit, that you want to,” Dunnigan said.
The new law will take effect May 8, 2018.
