A House bill designed to increase cybersecurity among financial institutions in Florida earned unanimous approval in its second of three committee stops.
The measure (HB 381) would require loan originators, mortgage brokers and lenders, and money services businesses to “develop, implement and maintain comprehensive written information security programs for protections of information systems and nonpublic personal information and to establish written incident response plans.”
The bill’s sponsor, DeLand Republican Rep. Webster Barnaby, said it’s designed to help prevent breaches of online information, such as personal financial details, driver’s license and passport numbers, military identification numbers, books and records of current and proposed financial institutions, and business plans of those companies. The measure also calls for reports to be filed with the Office of Financial Regulation.
While the House information Technology Budget & Policy Subcommittee endorsed the measure, Rep. Fiona McFarland, a Sarasota Republican and Chair of the panel, said the bill is still a work in progress and she would like to see amendments to make sure it’s not imposing too much regulation.
“We don’t have amendments (Monday) because we couldn’t get to a place where we were happy with the amendment language. You all have noticed there’s still some work that needs to be done on the bill,” McFarland said.
“Just because there’s more requirements on a piece of paper doesn’t always result in meaningful cybersecurity protections and sometimes can run the risk of being a regulatory burden without providing any meaningful cybersecurity protections.”
The measure next heads to the House Commerce Committee for review.
A similar bill in the Senate (SB 540) is slated for review in that chamber by the Rules Committee after already garnering approval in the Banking and Insurance Committee and the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government.
