Privacy, Please!

We're there, and we know it: The union of the Internet and commerce has led to increases in productivity, convenience and access for consumers everywhere. At the same time, it has spawned volumes of acute privacy concern. It's not unusual to hear of businesses inadvertently publicizing consumers' personal data ' or, worse, hackers obtaining personal financial information. It seems to happen all too often at credit-card companies, banks and the local supermarket.<br/>Of course, concerns over these privacy issues have reached the sector of the legal trade that advises and defends the banking industry, and with a vengeance, as evidenced by the various privacy related provisions incorporated in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA). In particular, the BAPCPA incorporated the Leahy-Hatch Amendment, also known as The Privacy Policy Enforcement in Bankruptcy Act of 2001 (PPEBA), which I had the honor of drafting. In particular, the PPEBA, in order to address certain privacy concerns, amended Bankruptcy Code '363(b)(1) and added pre-conditions to the sale or use of consumer data; added a new '332, creating the 'privacy ombudsman'; and defined 'personally identifiable data' in '101(41A). This article will review the development of these amendments, and analyze their potential impact for practitioners.