NAID Briefing--A Sequel to FACTA

NAID spent a lot of energy and resources promoting the FACTA Disposal Rule. After all, that is what trade associations do: They apply the combined resources of members on activities that advance their interests as a whole, activities like producing marketing brochures, publishing articles, enforcing ethics, developing standards and promoting favorable policies and legislation.

Now FACTA is law—the first national information destruction requirement. Is FACTA perfect? No, not by a long shot. Has that kept NAID from promoting it? No, not by a long shot.

It is fair to say that because of NAID’s promotion of the effective date of the FACTA Disposal Rule, hundreds of thousands of businesses now know about it.

As I said at the outset, the FACTA Disposal Rule is not perfect. While the FTC used the language "consumer information" to give the broadest interpretation possible to what it covers, it really only addresses the destruction of credit reports or information taken from a credit report. That is a drop in the bucket when compared to the volume of personal information that is discarded.

In the end, the most valuable thing about the FACTA Disposal Rule is that it has brought attention to the need for a law with wider scope.

Often in the world of government relations, you don’t know if you are getting anywhere. Fortunately, that is not the case with the next generation of disposal requirements, which could well be signed into law before this column is printed.

Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-Florida) office caught one of our news releases stating that FACTA was a good start, but that there was room for improvement. Within a week, the NAID government relations team met with his staff to explain what we meant. It seems that Nelson was drafting I.D. theft prevention legislation that did not require destruction. Based on NAID’s input, Nelson corrected that oversight. However, with no Republican support, this bill would get nowhere.

To make it worse, the I.D. theft prevention bill that was the leading contender for adoption coming from the Commerce Committee had no destruction requirement.

In an unlikely last-minute twist, Nelson threw his support behind the Commerce Committee bill, bringing along the destruction requirement.

While it’s not over until it’s over, the overwhelming high-level support for this law makes it a shoo-in. NAID will not always be so lucky as to see its influence so clearly reflected in legislation, but it sure is nice to sometimes.

Bob Johnson is executive director of the National Association for Information Destruction. He can be reached at exedir@naidonline.org.