Bill: HB 3248, 84(R) - 2015

Committee

House Government Transparency & Operation

Vote Recommendation

Vote Recommendation Economic Freedom Property Rights Personal Responsibility Limited Government Individual Liberty
Yes Neutral Positive Neutral Positive Neutral

Author(s)

Yvonne Davis

Bill Caption

Relating to state agency procedures and policies to protect and properly destroy certain information that identifies an individual.

Fiscal Notes

The fiscal implications of the bill cannot be determined at this time. Costs associated with compliance would be dependent on agency determinations as to whether the collection and maintenance of personally identifiable information is required by statute. In cases where agencies are required to modify applications and data systems and purge unauthorized data,costs could be significant.

For agencies that have specific statutory authority to house all information that they collect, the cost of the bill would not be fiscally significant. However, for agencies that lack such authority with respect to some of their data systems there would be costs to comply with the bill's provisions. According to the Texas Education Agency, the bill would require modification to several of the agency's data collection systems and that additional contract resources would be required to modify those systems. The agency maintains historical student data that was been collected under statutory authority that existed when the data was collected but may no longer exist. The agency estimates that the cost of complying with the bill would be $2.5 million in General Revenue Funds in fiscal year 2016. 

Bill Analysis

HB 3248 would require each state agency to develop policies and procedures to secure all information that alone or in conjunction with other information identifies an individual. The bill would require each state agency to destroy information that alone or in conjunction with other information identifies an individual if that information is not required to be retained under other law. The bill would allow an agency to destroy the information by shredding,erasing, or modifying the records so as to make the information unreadable or indecipherable. 

Vote Recommendation Notes

If state agencies do not already have these provisions in effect that is a much larger issue. It is a duty of the state to protect the information of their employees and HB 3248 would take the proper steps in assuring that their social security numbers, addresses, etc. would be secured and disposed of properly as to protect the individual's personal information and property. We support this legislation. 

Source URL (retrieved on 03/29/2024 04:03 AM): http://reports.texasaction.com/bill/84r/hb3248?print_view=true