Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade held a hearing during which there was a discussion of a Congressional proposal for a federal data breach statute. 

Currently, there are 47 different state data breach notification laws, with seven states introducing a total of 17 such bills already in 2015. The White House also pressed Congress to make data breach a 2015 priority, as it recently released its own legislative proposal through Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. The White House’s proposal would establish a 30-day window for notification of breach, require companies to report breaches to the government, and charges the Federal Trade Commission as the entity to set and enforce federal data guidelines.

Florida, North Carolina and Ohio each have their own data breach notification statutes. Florida’s is one of the most stringent in the nation. Enacted in 2014, the Florida Information Protection Act establishes many requirements of businesses in the event of a customer data breach. Failure to properly comply can result in significant fines of up to half a million dollars.