Minn. Legislature Tackles Credit Card Fraud

ST. PAUL, Minn.–In an effort to combat the growing problem of credit card account compromises and to protect consumers from the risk of fraud, members of the Minnesota Legislature introduced the Plastic Card Security Act on March 7, according to the Minnesota CU Network. H.F. 1758/S.F. 1574 would take the current voluntary data security measures required by the credit card companies and make them mandatory under state law. “While there are rules in place prohibiting the storage of certain magnetic stripe data, we are concerned that these rules are not always enforced,” said Mark Cummins, CEO of the state league. “Our primary concern is to protect consumers from fraud.” This effort at the state level is similar to legislation U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has indicated he is interested in shepherding through the House Banking Committee (which Frank chairs).