Data Breach Reporting Requirements

Issuing agencies

Abstract

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) begins the process to update and strengthen its data breach rule to provide greater protections to the public. We propose to expand the Commission's definition of "breach" to include inadvertent disclosures of customer information and seek comment on adopting a harm-based trigger for breach notifications. We also propose to require carriers to notify the Commission, in addition to the Secret Service and FBI, as soon as practicable after discovery of a breach. We also propose to eliminate the mandatory waiting period before notifying customers and instead require carriers to notify customers of CPNI breaches without unreasonable delay after discovery of a breach unless requested by law enforcement. We also propose to make changes to our TRS data breach reporting rule consistent with those we propose to our CPNI breach reporting rule.