All fifty states require breach notification and none of them agree on the deadline, the trigger, or the regulator threshold. This hub tracks amendments to those rules and the enforcement that follows late or inadequate notice.
Breach Notification
November 9, 2026
Arizona's breach article opens with a duty to investigate any security incident, then gives the data owner 45 days from the determination that a breach occurred. Above 1,000 individuals, filings go to three credit bureaus, the Attorney General and the state homeland security director. Only the Attorney General may enforce, under a penalty ceiling of $500,000.
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Breach Notification
November 9, 2026
Louisiana's breach chapter imposes a reasonable security duty and a record destruction duty before it reaches notice. Residents are told within 60 days of discovery, unless written reasons for delay reach the Attorney General inside that window. A separate regulation requires the Attorney General's copy within 10 days of resident notice, and R.S. 51:3075 allows a suit for actual damages.
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Breach Notification
November 9, 2026
North Carolina's Identity Theft Protection Act does not limit its breach duty to computers: section 75-65 reaches personal information in any form. Every business that notifies a person also reports to the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, with no minimum count, and a violation is an unfair practice under G.S. 75-1.1, with private suits reserved for those injured.
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Breach Notification
November 9, 2026
South Carolina's private-sector breach statute names the Department of Consumer Affairs, not the Attorney General. Section 39-1-90 sends filings above 1,000 persons to that Department, gives it power to set a per-resident fine, and lets an injured resident sue. Its text reaches computerized or other data, though its definition of a breach mentions only computerized data.
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Breach Notification
November 2, 2026
Maine's breach chapter, the Notice of Risk to Personal Data Act, applies one notice trigger to information brokers and a misuse-based trigger to everyone else. Notice is due within 30 days of learning of a breach and identifying its scope, every notice is copied to a state regulator, and violations are civil violations with fines that do not reach public bodies.
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Breach Notification
November 2, 2026
Montana has three parallel breach sections: MCA 30-14-1704 for persons and businesses, 33-19-321 for insurance licensees, and 2-6-1503 for state agencies. Each sends a copy of every resident notice to a state office, and none sets a day count. The general section is enforced through the Consumer Protection Act by the Department of Justice.
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Breach Notification
November 2, 2026
Ohio's private-sector breach law requires notice to residents within 45 days when an access-and-acquisition incident creates a material risk of identity theft or fraud. It names no state office to receive notice, sends a report to the national credit bureaus above 1,000 residents, and gives the Attorney General exclusive power to sue for penalties that rise with each day of noncompliance.
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Breach Notification
November 2, 2026
Wisconsin's breach statute never uses the word breach. It requires notice when an entity knows personal information was acquired without authorization, counts DNA profiles and biometric data as personal information, and sets a 45-day limit. It names no enforcer and no penalty, and a federal court has held it creates no private right of action.
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Breach Notification
October 26, 2026
Iowa's Personal Information Security Breach Protection chapter dates from 2008 and was reshaped in 2014 and 2018. It reaches paper printouts of computer records, lets a business skip notice only on a written no-harm finding kept five years, and puts a five-business-day Attorney General clock behind the first consumer notice.
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Breach Notification
October 26, 2026
Kentucky's private-sector breach statute was created by House Bill 232 in 2014 and has not been amended since. It counts an incident as a breach only if it causes or is reasonably believed to cause identity theft or fraud, requires no notice to any state office, and contains no enforcement clause of its own.
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Breach Notification
October 26, 2026
House Bill 5 of 2014 gave Kentucky's executive branch, local governments, school districts and public universities, and the contractors that receive their data, a security duty and a staged reporting chain: officials within 72 hours, again within 48 hours of the investigation's end, then affected individuals within 35 days.
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Breach Notification
October 26, 2026
Nebraska's Financial Data Protection and Consumer Notification of Data Security Breach Act of 2006 requires a good-faith investigation before notice, routes every required notice to the Attorney General as well, offers a small-business newspaper option, and since 2018 carries a security duty enforced through the Consumer Protection Act.
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Breach Notification
October 26, 2026
New Hampshire's three-section breach subdivision took effect January 1, 2007 and has not been amended. It requires notice when misuse is likely or cannot be determined, routes the state notice to a primary regulator or the Attorney General, and gives injured persons a damages action that doubles or trebles for willful violations.
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Breach Notification
October 19, 2026
Michigan's breach duty is section 12 of the Identity Theft Protection Act, MCL 445.72. It requires notice unless the entity determines, with ordinary prudence, that the breach is not likely to cause substantial loss, injury or identity theft. Insurers are carved out to a parallel regime in the Insurance Code, and Senate Bills 360 to 364 would add Attorney General notice.
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Breach Notification
October 19, 2026
Minnesota's private-sector breach statute, Minn. Stat. 325E.61, has changed little since 2006. It requires notice to residents whose unencrypted personal information was or is reasonably believed acquired, without a risk-of-harm exception or a day count, adds a 48-hour credit bureau notice above 500 persons, and leaves government entities to a separate statute with its own rules.
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Breach Notification
October 19, 2026
Tennessee replaced its breach statute twice in two years. Public Chapter 692 of 2016 set a 45-day deadline and dropped the encryption exception; Public Chapter 91 of 2017 rewrote section 47-18-2107 in full, restoring encryption by reference to FIPS 140-2, keeping 45 days, adding a materiality test and a credit bureau duty, and keeping a customer's right to sue.
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Breach Notification
October 5, 2026
In December 2023 the FCC rewrote its carrier breach rule to reach personally identifiable information and inadvertent exposures, add itself as a recipient, and swap a mandatory waiting period for a 30-day limit. Those amendments still await an effective date, and on July 31, 2026 the Sixth Circuit vacated the panel decision upholding the order.
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Breach Notification
October 5, 2026
Florida's breach statute is section 501.171, created in 2014 by CS/CS/SB 1524 as the Florida Information Protection Act. It pairs a duty to take reasonable security measures with two 30-day notice clocks, one to residents and one to the Department of Legal Affairs at 500 people, and it treats a violation as a FDUTPA unfair practice with per-breach civil penalties capped at $500,000.
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Breach Notification
October 5, 2026
Virginia's breach statute sits in the criminal code at section 18.2-186.6 but is enforced civilly by the Attorney General, with penalties up to $150,000 per breach. Residents and the Attorney General get notice when identity theft or fraud is caused or reasonably believed likely. A medical statute reaches only public bodies, and payroll and tax preparer breaches have rules of their own.
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Breach Notification
September 28, 2026
Pennsylvania's breach statute is the Act of December 22, 2005, P.L. 474, No. 94. Senate Bill 696, enacted as Act 151 of 2022, rewrote its trigger and added duties for State agencies, contractors, counties, schools and municipalities. Senate Bill 824, enacted as Act 33 of 2024, added Attorney General notice and credit monitoring and quietly narrowed the medical information element.
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Ransomware
September 14, 2026
The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 wrote two reporting clocks into federal law but left their start date, and the definitions of who reports and what, to a CISA rulemaking that was due in October 2025. This sets out what the statute fixes, what the 2024 proposal would add, and where the rulemaking stood on September 14, 2026.
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Data Security Rules
September 14, 2026
The SHIELD Act of 2019 did two things: it widened New York's breach notification statute, General Business Law section 899-aa, and it added section 899-bb, a standalone duty to maintain reasonable data security. This sets out the security requirement as enacted, the routes to deemed compliance, and the three later chapters that changed section 899-aa without touching section 899-bb.
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GLBA
September 1, 2026
The FTC amended the Safeguards Rule in November 2023 to add a reporting duty at 16 CFR 314.4(j). It turns on acquisition of unencrypted customer information rather than on any assessment of harm, applies at 500 consumers, runs 30 days from discovery, and carries no small-institution exemption.
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Breach Notification
August 24, 2026
Every state has a breach notification statute, and no two set the same combination of deadline, regulator and threshold. This guide charts the individual-notice deadline and the regulator notice rule for the 48 states whose statutes are documented against a primary source in the research behind this site.
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Ransomware
August 24, 2026
A ransomware incident sets off obligations that sit outside the state breach statutes entirely. Encryption alone can be a reportable event under HIPAA before any record leaves the building, and the decision to pay opens a separate track running through sanctions law, bank secrecy reporting and securities disclosure. This guide charts those duties and where each clock starts.
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HIPAA
August 12, 2026
HIPAA is three interlocking rules rather than one, and they apply to a defined set of organizations rather than to health information generally. This guide covers who is covered, what the Privacy Rule permits without authorization, what the Security Rule requires, how business associate liability works, and the mechanics of breach notification.
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