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The discussion on Capitol Hill around data privacy has pivoted to focus on data security, which arguably has a better chance of resulting in federal legislation. The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade met this morning for a hearing on data breach legislation.

“This committee is calling for action,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), committee chairman. “Federal legislation should include a single but flexible data security requirement,” he said, reiterating industry calls for a blanket national rule to replace the 47 state laws applying to data breach notification. Mr. Burgess, along with other committee members, stressed that data breach notification laws applying to financial services and healthcare industry firms should be separate and dealt with by authorities that directly oversee those industries.

Democratic members of the committee including Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois indicated that they want to ensure a federal law does not weaken the ability of state attorneys general to enforce notification laws. Hearing witness Woodrow Hartzog, associate professor at Cumberland School of Law, said he would like to see minimal pre-emption of state rules and would like the FTC to be given rulemaking authority in association with legislation.

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