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The House passed a bill by voice vote Tuesday evening that would allow banks to opt out from sending unchanged annual privacy notices to customers, a measure the chamber previously passed during the lame duck session last year.
March 12
WASHINGTON — Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., introduced a bill Thursday that would exempt financial institutions from having to send annual private notices if the disclosures haven't changed from the year before.
The Privacy Modernization Act of 2013 differs slightly from a bill that passed the House earlier this month, by requiring institutions to always make their privacy disclosures available online or in another form in order to qualify for the exemption.
"Consumers don't need to be flooded with duplicative and confusing information, we need to make disclosures easier to understand," Brown said in a press release. "My commonsense bill would reduce burdensome and unnecessary paperwork — that burden consumers and community banks and credit unions alike — and ensure that provide disclosures are timely, clear, and concise."
Industry groups have been supportive of efforts to roll back the notice requirement, arguing it cuts down on waste and consumer confusion. Critics, however, have argued that eliminating annual privacy disclosures would reduce consumer protections.
Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Mark Warner, D-Va., Heidi Heitkamp D-N.D., Mike Johanns, R-Neb., Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., also signed on to the bill as original co-sponsors.
