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It’s short, to the point, and – as these things go – we think readable. It’s a new publication called FTC Safeguards Rule: What Your Business Needs to Know and it may be the resource you’re looking for to help your company comply with the revised Safeguards Rule.

After asking for public comments, hosting a national forum, and reviewing what consumers and businesses had to say, the FTC revised its Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information – better known as the Safeguards Rule – in December 2021. The Rule requires financial institutions within the FTC’s jurisdiction to have measures in place to keep customer information secure.

Are you covered by the Safeguards Rule? The Rule’s definition of “financial institution” is broader that you may think. FTC Safeguards Rule: What Your Business Needs to Know walks you through the analysis to help make that determination.

Did you create an information security program back in the day, but haven’t dusted if off in a while? The new publication serves as a reminder of your responsibility to revisit your program regularly to make sure it’s in step with your current business practices and emerging security risks.

Have you updated your program to reflect revisions to the Rule, which took effect in January 2022? The guide uses a to-the-point Q&A approach to address the questions you may have.

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
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We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

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