The Securities and Exchange Commission has been conducting “sweep” examinations of financial services firms to determine whether their procedures to prevent identity theft are adequate, Investment News reports. Noting that ID theft is no longer committed by teenagers “for fun,” SEC Chief Counsel John Walsh says the agency is concentrating on large firms that control the most customers and those that do a lot of their business on the Internet. Investment News says Congress is currently considering a number of financial privacy bills, but the Securities Industry Association is pressing that the primary regulator for each industry covered by the legislation would be responsible for data breach security. In the case of financial services, that would be the SEC.
