Top members of the State Senate announced plans Wednesday for the state to adopt new standards of data encryption for health insurance companies.
The proposal comes less than a week after Anthem, Connecticut’s largest insurer, told customers it was the victim of a data breach that compromised more than 1.5 million names, addresses, and phone numbers.
State Sen. Martin Looney, the top Democrat in the Connecticut Senate, said there have been informal talks about online protections but the news of the hack provided more urgency.
“It has certainly enhanced, I think, the degree of alarm and also just the sheer size and scope of this Anthem hacking is creating alarms everywhere,” said Looney.
Anthem announced Wednesday that any of its 80 million policy holders who may have been affected by the hack nationwide will have free access to credit monitoring and identity theft protection services starting this Friday.
The company said in a statement it’s been working with a vendor to arrange credit monitoring for potentially tens of millions of people. The services will be provided free of charge for two years.
Attorney General George Jepsen sent a letter, along with nine other state attorneys general, laying out their concerns to Anthem. He said Anthem has been more transparent than other corporations that have suffered similar hacks.
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“They had a good start,” Jepsen said. “They got out there with the information much more quickly than Target or Home Depot did with their breaches.”
Republicans are on board with examining ways for companies to encrypt data in better ways, but added that they don’t want to create new problems with new legislation.
“When we make laws, we have to make sure that we don’t end up with unintended consequences, so I definitely think it’s something we ought to look and say, 'What is the problem we want to solve?' and make sure that nothing we do causes another problem,” said State Rep. Themis Klarides, Minority Leader of the Connecticut House.
Both Looney and Klarides have Anthem insurance plans. Klarides said she’ll use the services the company is offering.
“I’m certainly concerned about it, and on Friday, when this starts, you better believe that I’ll be on there signing up for identity theft and fraud protection,” Klarides said.
