----- Original Message -----
From: "Gina Rodgers" <gsrodger@yahoo.com>
To: "Shannon Withycombe" <skerryw@yahoo.com>; "Kerry Wright"
<kwright@legis.state.ia.us>; "Danielle Yeager" <lmtdani@yahoo.com>; "Jody
Landenberger" <jodylandenberger@hotmail.com>; "Andrew Liao"
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"julie nelson" <jknelson73@hotmail.com>; "Rob Rodgers"
<rodgers@kcroyalsfan.com>; "Sue Rodgers" <rrrfarms66@hotmail.com>; "Koty
Sharp" <ksharp@ucsd.edu>; "Rachel Silver" <rach_silver@yahoo.com>; "Alanna
Boyd" <aboyd@circles.com>; "Roger Guzowski"
<guzowskir@facmgmtserver.fm.csus.edu>; "Margret Hjalmarson"
<mhjalmar@math.purdue.edu>
Cc: "Jes Walker" <jeswalker1@yahoo.com>; "Amy Ward Hamilton"
<mahamilton@ev1.net>; "Brian Iceman Wendt" <briandwendt@hotmail.com>;
"Benjamin Mah" <mahctagon@hotmail.com>; "Katy Maturevich"
<kmature@hotmail.com>; "Kim McAtee" <ckmac@avalon.net>; "Amanda Nicoli"
<amandanicoli@excite.com>; "Nat Pearre" <natpearre@netzero.net>; "Kelly
Rhodes (King)" <krhodes@eastpointemfg.com>; "Gwyneth Sharp"
<gwyneth@udel.edu>; "Lyn Avey" <campushouse@kearney.net>; "Brandon Bell"
<Brandon.Bell@frco.com>; "Seth Bell" <sebell@wcnoc.com>; "Neil Coker"
<nilchik@juno.com>; "Jacquelynn Grote" <gingerbread001@yahoo.com>; "Phil
Kean" <kean.philip@mcleodusa.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:07 AM
Subject: Your personal financial privacy and new law


> read me!  and don't throw away notices from your fin. institutions until
> you read them!!!
> gina
>
>
> Excerpt from Business Week:
> > In coming weeks, households will receive a torrent of notices from every
> > financial institution with which they do business. Many will dump the
> > deluge as so much junk. If they do, they risk throwing away their right
> > to protect  their privacy over vast swaths of their personal and
> > financial information from name and address to details of assets,
> > income, and debts.<BR>
> >    Under new rules now going into effect, financial institutions must
> > disclose what information they collect about their customers, and how
> > they share it, both with affiliates and outside firms. Consumers can't
> > stop in-house sharing, such as by a bank with its brokerage arm, but
> > they must be offered the chance to opt out of sharing with third
> > parties. Hence, the avalanche of mail.<BR>
> >    If customers don't object, financial institutions
> > can release customer account numbers to outside marketers or partners
> > who run programs such as air-miles. The rules don't require institutions
> > to make sure that third parties, handling everything from preparing
> > account statements to marketing, keep consumer information under wraps.
> > They don't protect information about people in employee benefit plans,
> > such as 401(k)s, administered by financial companies. And they allow the
> > sharing of extensive customer information that, while not personally
> > identified, can be merged easily with other databases to create detailed
> > portraits of consumers' financial dealings.<BR>
> >    Until now, information sharing has been largely unregulated, leaving
> > individual companies to decide how much, or little, they would protect
> > privacy. ``[The new law] extends some important additional protections
> > to consumers about their personal information,'' says Julie L. Williams,
> > chief counsel to the Treasury Dept.'s Office of the Comptroller of the
> > Currency, who played a key role in writing the rules.<BR>
> >    But privacy advocates complain the law permits an Orwellian intrusion
> > into consumers' financial lives. Short of an outright ban on sharing of
> > consumer information, they wanted a much stronger opt-in rule that would
> > have prevented information-sharing unless customers positively agreed.
> > ``Consumers have no control over sharing most of their information most
> > of the time,'' complains Ed Mierzwinski, consumer director for the U.S.
> > Public Interest Research Group, a Washington watchdog group.<BR>
> >    The rules are even leakier than they appear. For example, financial
> > institutions must protect private information. But if they ``reasonably
> > believe'' that information is publicly available, the data can be shared
> > with third parties. So if information has been published say in a
> > magazine or on a Web site--even if access is restricted by a
> > password--then it's no longer protected. Some joint account holders
> > might be in a strange situation: Though all holders have the right to
> > opt out of disclosure of their information, the rules say financial
> > institutions need send only one notice per account. And employees in
> > benefit plans don't get the chance to protect themselves, as their
> > employers, not they, are considered the customers.<BR>
> >    If the new arrangements sound as though they were designed to please
> > banks, brokers, and insurers, that's because they largely were. They are
> > the by-product of a hugely expensive, two decades-long campaign by the
> > financial industry to sweep away Depression-era laws that forbade
> > mergers among banks, brokers, and insurers. The resulting
> > Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed in Nov., 1999, aimed to legalize one-stop
> > financial conglomerates such as Citigroup. But it also laid down the
> > parameters for privacy protection.<BR>
> >    Financial institutions for the most part aren't adopting completely
> > new privacy policies. Instead, they're codifying their current practice
> > and telling customers about it. Atlanta's SunTrust Banks Inc., for
> > example, uses outside firms to provide services such as credit cards and
> > insurance. If customers don't object, the bank can give suppliers their
> > information, including name, Social Security number, assets, income,
> > account balance, and details of transactions with itself or its
> > affiliates. Some firms, like New York's J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., go
> > further. Its policy allows customer contact information--names,
> > addresses, and phone numbers--to be shared with nonfinancial companies
> > offering travel programs, dental or legal services, and the like.<BR>
> >    A few institutions, leery of consumer backlash, have decided not to
> > share information with outsiders. Bank of America Corp., for instance,
> > will handle all customer contact itself if it enters joint marketing
> > projects with third parties.<BR>
> >    Still, most of the industry is intent on defending the rules. So far,
> > it has been able to protect its big investment in getting the law
> > changed. If customers don't react to the notices they're now receiving,
> > that investment will be even safer.<BR>
>
>
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