Every year, businesses go under and disappear, leaving behind boxes of transaction records, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information that could lead to identity theft and other forms of fraud.
Landlords and owners of storage companies, who tend to get stuck holding these records, have no legal way to dispose of them and are paying thousands of dollars to store them. And the recession has only made the situation worse.
But a state bill, AB1094, developed by the California Office of Information Security and Privacy Protection and carried by Rep. Connie Conway, R-Tulare, would allow people who end up with these records to properly dispose of them without fear of being sued.
The bill passed the Assembly with no opposition and is expected to pass the Senate soon unless state budget politics intervene.
Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle.