By Daily Press staff
Attorney General Bill Lockyer has urged the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Trade Commission to delay preempting state consumer protection laws that guard against identity theft until the provisions of the federal Fair and Accurate Transactions Act of 2003 are in effect.
“Although many important provisions of the federal law will not go into effect for almost a year, state consumer protection laws could be preempted immediately,” Lockyer said. “We cannot leave residents of California and other states without strong protections against identity theft and other consumer fraud. With holiday sales and gift exchanges luring California shoppers into stores, the potential for identity theft is at a peak, and strong laws protecting consumers are critical.”
As president of the National Association of Attorneys General, Lockyer sent a letter this week to the Federal Reserve System board of governors and the FTC, urging them to link the effective date of the new preemption provisions contained in the FACT Act to the date each of the provisions in the federal law goes into effect.
The FACT Act, signed by President Bush on Dec. 4, revises the existing Fair Credit Reporting Act by, among other things, making permanent preemption provisions of the FCRA that were set to expire on Jan. 1, 2004. But a rule adopted, without public comment on Dec. 15 by the board of governors and the FTC appears to preempt state laws effective Dec. 31, 2003, leaving consumers with no protection for six months to a year.
California law, for example, gives identity theft victims the right to obtain copies of applications and transactions for accounts that are fraudulently opened in the victim’s name. The FACT Act contains a comparable provision and thus preempts all states from enforcing similar state laws. If the provision preempting state law became effective Dec. 31, as proposed, California consumers would have no right under either state or federal law to obtain the information until the federal law goes into effect in June 2004.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 2, 2004. Read the original PDF.