Law / United States / 
Alabama
Alabama Data Breach Notification Act of 2018
Ala. Code sec. 8-38-1 et seq. (Act 2018-396)
In force.
A breach notification rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Data subject residence
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Notify each affected Alabama resident within 45 days after receiving notice of a breach from a third-party agent or after determining that a breach of security has acquired sensitive personally identifying information and is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm.
- Give the Alabama Attorney General written notice within 45 days when more than 1,000 individuals must be notified of a breach.
- As a third-party agent that has experienced a breach of security in a system it maintains, notify the covered entity as expeditiously as possible and without unreasonable delay, and no later than 10 days after determining the breach occurred or having reason to believe it occurred.
- Notify the nationwide consumer reporting agencies without unreasonable delay when more than 1,000 individuals must be notified at a single time.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Office of the Alabama Attorney General (guidance, recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST Privacy Framework
- CM.AW-P7Impacted individuals and organizations are notified about a privacy breach or event.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Guidance link
- https://www.alabamaag.gov/data-breach-notification/
- Guidance body
- Office of the Alabama Attorney General
- Open questions
- When is a breach of security "reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to the individuals" under Section 5(a) of the Alabama Data Breach Notification Act, so that notice is owed, where sensitive personally identifying information has been acquired but no misuse has been reported?
What it makes you log
Log retention
Section 5(f): records concerning a determination that notice is not required are kept for no less than five years; the clause does not say from what day the period runs.
- Unit
- Years
- As of
- Basis
- Fixed
- Minimum value
- 5
Logging duty
A covered entity that determines that notice of a breach is not required must document that determination in writing and keep records concerning it for at least five years. The clause names no field of the record from the closed list, and the Act says nothing about who may demand the record: the Attorney General's powers in section 9 concern notice, penalties and enforcement, and section 6 concerns written notice to the Attorney General when more than 1,000 individuals are notified. The duty to investigate a breach in section 4 and the duty to give notice in sections 5 to 8 require no record.
- Kind
- Explicit
- As of
- Provision
- Act 2018-396 section 5(f) (Ala. Code sec. 8-38-5)
- Trigger
- security_incident
What this law does
The Alabama Data Breach Notification Act of 2018 binds every covered entity that acquires or uses sensitive personally identifying information, a term defined to include a government entity alongside a person, corporation or nonprofit. A covered entity that determines a breach of security has acquired sensitive personally identifying information, and is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to the Alabama residents concerned, must notify each affected individual within 45 days.
Where more than 1,000 individuals must be notified, the entity must also give the Attorney General written notice within 45 days. The entity must also notify the nationwide consumer reporting agencies without unreasonable delay when it discovers circumstances requiring notice of more than 1,000 individuals at a single time. The Attorney General has exclusive authority to bring an action for civil penalties under the Act, and a violation does not establish a private cause of action.
A covered entity that violates the notification provisions is liable for a civil penalty of not more than $5,000 for each consecutive day it fails to take reasonable action to comply. Civil penalties assessed for a knowing violation of the notice requirements do not exceed $500,000 per breach. Government entities are subject to the notice requirements of the Act but exempt from any civil penalty it authorizes.
Section 13 of the Act provides that it becomes effective on the first day of the third month following its passage and approval by the Governor. No official record stating the day the Governor approved the Act, or the resulting day, has been located.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app processes personal data.
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