ABIA Supports Proposed Privacy Notice Changes

The American Bankers Insurance Association yesterday expressed its support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s move to implement recent legislation providing banks an exemption from sending an annual privacy notice provided they meet certain requirements.

Under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, banks were generally required to send annual notices to customers detailing whether and how their nonpublic personal information is shared and provide a way for customers to opt-out of having their information shared with unaffiliated third parties. In December, Congress passed a law ending the requirement to mail an annual notice, provided that they have not changed their policies and practices on the disclosure of nonpublic information since the previous notice was sent, and that they do not share non-public personal information with third parties, as permitted by law.

ABIA stated that the annual exemption should be available to an institution regardless of whether its privacy notice includes opt-out disclosures under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for the sharing and use of “other” information with affiliate institutions, since, unlike the GLBA, FCRA does not require an annual disclosure. ABIA added that changes to FCRA information-sharing policies should also not affect the exemption from the annual privacy notice requirement. Rather, the institution should be able to send a single notice of the change to affected customers.