Not to be outdone by Florida, California has yet again amended its breach law and again in groundbreaking (yet confusing) fashion. On September 30, 2014, California Governor Brown signed into law a bill (“AB 1710”) that appears to impose the country’s first requirement to provide free identity theft protection services to consumers in connection with certain breaches. The law also amends the state’s personal information safeguards law and Social Security number (“SSN”) law. The amendments will become effective on January 1, 2015.

FREE IDENTITY THEFT PROTECTION SERVICES REQUIRED FOR CERTAIN BREACHES -

Most significantly, AB 1710 appears to amend the California breach law to require that a company offer a California resident “appropriate identity theft prevention and mitigation” services, at no cost, if a breach involves that individual’s name and SSN, driver’s license number or California identification card number. Specifically, AB 1710 provides, in pertinent part, that if a company providing notice of such a breach was “the source of the breach”...