Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 749, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act.  The bill is sponsored by Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer (R-MO) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA).  An earlier version of the bill passed the House in December but was never taken up by the Senate.  We previously covered similar legislation introduced by Representative Leutkemeyer.

The bill provides that a financial institution subject to the requirement in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) to send annual privacy notices to customers is excluded from this requirement if the institution (1) only discloses customers’ nonpublic personal information to nonaffiliated third-parties pursuant to an exception in GLBA (e.g., for processing or servicing a customer’s account or to a service provider) from the overall opt-out framework and (2) has not changed its policies and practices with regard to disclosing nonpublic personal information from the policies and practices that were disclosed in the most recent notice sent to customers.  If either of these requirements ceases to apply, the institution would be required to send an annual privacy notice.  The legislation is intended to lessen the regulatory burden on financial institutions and potential for customer confusion in sending to customers privacy notices that have not changed over time and that are generally available on institutions’ websites. 

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Photo of Mike Nonaka Mike Nonaka

Michael Nonaka is co-chair of the Financial Services Group and advises banks, financial services providers, fintech companies, and commercial companies on a broad range of compliance, enforcement, transactional, and legislative matters.

He specializes in providing advice relating to federal and state licensing and…

Michael Nonaka is co-chair of the Financial Services Group and advises banks, financial services providers, fintech companies, and commercial companies on a broad range of compliance, enforcement, transactional, and legislative matters.

He specializes in providing advice relating to federal and state licensing and applications matters for banks and other financial institutions, the development of partnerships and platforms to provide innovative financial products and services, and a broad range of compliance areas such as anti-money laundering, financial privacy, cybersecurity, and consumer protection. He also works closely with banks and their directors and senior leadership teams on sensitive supervisory and strategic matters.

Mike plays an active role in the firm’s Fintech Initiative and works with a number of banks, lending companies, money transmitters, payments firms, technology companies, and service providers on innovative technologies such as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchain, big data, cloud computing, same day payments, and online lending. He has assisted numerous banks and fintech companies with the launch of innovative deposit and loan products, technology services, and cryptocurrency-related products and services.

Mike has advised a number of clients on compliance with TILA, ECOA, TISA, HMDA, FCRA, EFTA, GLBA, FDCPA, CRA, BSA, USA PATRIOT Act, FTC Act, Reg. K, Reg. O, Reg. W, Reg. Y, state money transmitter laws, state licensed lender laws, state unclaimed property laws, state prepaid access laws, and other federal and state laws and regulations.