For example, the same notifications sent to the media as required under the HITECH Act (a personal information protection act for healthcare data) may or may not be required by state regulations, depending on the states and the specifics of your incident.

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Britain, for instance, recently passed the UK Data Protection Act, which fines companies for losing personal data related to its customers or employees.

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The practice has continued because lenders have had a grace period from the provision within the Data Protection Act, which bans sharing of such personal data.

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"It is deeply worrying that after a number of major data losses and the publication of two government reports on high profile breaches of the Data Protection Act, more personal information has been reported lost, " he said.

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Lawyers who spoke at the debate said that the government's claim on retaining data contradicted the European Human Rights Act which states that there must be a good reason to interfere with personal data.

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The act says that if an individual's personal data are used to deny them a job, a loan, housing or other important benefit, the individual must be given an opportunity to view the data and dispute its accuracy.

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In America, for instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) introduced security standards for personal health data.

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The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich wrote in a blog post that Cispa "is terrible on transparency" and that the shared personal data between firms and the government would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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The US Patriot Act has been cited as an example of a law where the submission of personal data stored in the EU is required to be submitted to the US authorities.

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New legislation, such as the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act, is intended to give individuals more control over how their personal information is used now that it can so easily be zapped from computer to computer.

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