If you own or run a business..The FACTA Law can impact you.

You hear of issues in the news but don't necessarily pay attention to them because you think that they don't affect you. New laws, old laws, who cares? As long as I run my business, make a profit, and pay my taxes....I'm okay. Does this sound like you or somebody you know?

If so, and even if "not so,"...then brace yourself for a very rude awakening. Unfortunately, not paying attention this time, can bankrupt your business, or at the very least cause it significant financial stress.

Why? In a term....FACTA Liability

On June 1, 2005, a new provision of FACTA went into effect. This new provision of the Facta Law says that any employer (even if you only employ one person) whose action or inaction results in the loss of employee or customer information, can be fined by federal and state government, and sued in civil court.

'With unlimited statutory damages [under FACTA] this is a litigator's dream,' says Thomas Hefferon, Partner at Goodwin Proctor LLP.

Concerned yet?

You should be. All data is vulnerable. You need to know what you can do to protect your business with the Facta Law in place.

All companies in the United States are affected by this legislative act.

So, what if you do shred all potential employee information, and take all necessary precautions to protect your past, current, and future employees’ identities, and the information still gets out somehow? Under the FACTA law, you could still be held responsible. Why? Because the "reasonable security" requirement under the FACTA law is not clearly defined and during litigation you can be assured the plaintiff's attorney will argue that you could have done more.

You can do more.

Is information theft a real problem?

The numbers speak for themselves. FACTA LAW liability.Continue reading about FACTA LAW

You may not think information theft could happen to you, but neither did a lot of companies, universities, government institutions, and businesses that have had employee or customer information stolen from them that have been in the news lately:

Data Debacles: Top 10 Customer Data Loss Incidents
Company/Organization	Number of affected customers	Date of initial disclosure
Citigroup	3.9 million	June 6
DSW Shoe Warehouse	1.4 million	March 8
Bank of America	1.2 million	Feb. 25
Time Warner	600,000	May 2
LexisNexis	310,000	March 9
Ameritrade	200,000	April 19
Polo Ralph Lauren	180,000	April 14
ChoicePoint	145,000	Feb. 15
Boston College	120,000	March 17
Bank of America and Wachovia	108,000	May 23
Source: InformationWeek, public disclosures by companies

Consider this:. Banks understand that no matter what they do with regard to security, criminals will still attempt to steal their money. So, what did banks do? They employed "DYE PACKS". If a criminal successfully steals their money, the dye pack explodes coating the bills with a red dye rendering the money "harder to use". Think of our program as a FACTA LAW Identity Theft "DYE PACK". If identity thieves were able to access your data (employee files, tenant and client files etc.)that you are liable for under the FACTA Law provision, our program would make it harder for the identity thieves to use. In addition, with our program is in place, it will serve as an early alarm to you that the data was compromised. Companies and individuals generally find out only after the damage is done. In a FACTA LAW environment with the high level of financial liability assigned to businesses, discovering the compromise after the damage has been done, is too late. Furthermore, if your company advertised participation with our service, the identity thieves would see you as a difficult target. Don't you want that? Your clients and employees certainly do. This is a tried and true strategy that has been working for years. It can work for your company too. "An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure". Ben Franklin

Go to almost any major search engine and type in the keywords: facta liability.

Don't wait until FACTA happens to you. ACT NOW!

►Reprint Rights◄

Log in to become a member of Jeryl Harvard's Fan Club!

Comments on this article:
No comments yet.

Was this article helpful to you? Leave a Public Comment or Question: