Financial Privacy: The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act

The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" or GLB Act, includes provisions to protect consumers' personal financial information held by financial institutions. There are two principal parts to the privacy requirements: the Financial Privacy Rule and the Safeguards Rule.

The Financial Privacy Rule governs the collection and disclosure of customers' personal financial information by financial institutions.

The Safeguards Rule requires all financial institutions to design, implement and maintain safeguards to protect customer information.

These two requirements apply to "financial institutions," which include not only banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, but also companies providing many other types of financial products and services to consumers. Among these services are lending, brokering or servicing any type of consumer loan, transferring or safeguarding money, preparing individual tax returns, providing financial advice or credit counseling, providing residential real estate settlement services, collecting consumer debts and an array of other activities.

The Federal Trade Commission has authority to enforce the law with respect to "financial institutions" including non-bank mortgage lenders, loan brokers, some financial or investment advisers, tax preparers, providers of real estate settlement services, and debt collectors.

To implement its information security program, each financial institution must:

• Designate an employee or employees to coordinate the program
• Identify reasonably foreseeable internal and external risks to the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer information and assess the sufficiency of any safeguards in place to control the risks
• Design and implement safeguards to address the risks and monitor the effectiveness of these safeguards
• Select and retain service providers that are capable of maintaining appropriate safeguards for the information and require them, by contract, to implement and maintain such safeguards
• Adjust the information security program in light of developments that may materially affect the program

Learn how we can help

The MFP is the natural link between information and the way people use it, which is why Sharp offers a comprehensive security suite designed to provide our clients with a scalable approach to securing confidential information. For more information on how Sharp can help meet your privacy needs, please download the Sharp Security Suite brochure.

For more information on GLB, please see the Federal Trade Commission website at: http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/glbact/.