Dealers in the crosshairs due to failure to protect consumers’ financial information

Crystal Lake, IL – Automotive Compliance Consultants, the only dealership-exclusive compliance experts in the auto industry, cautioned auto dealers are attractive  candidates for failure to protect consumer financial information, and being targeted by both the Federal Trade Commission responsible for ensuring this protection and identity thieves who’ll seemingly try anything to get this information through car dealerships.

Recent FTC actions against a dealership to settle violations of the GLB Act and the Safeguards Rule make clear:

• Your dealership is deemed a financial institution and is no longer flying under the FTC’s radar – it is now a bright light

• Your dealership is certainly an attractive beacon on the radar of criminal elements who seek your financial and customer information

“If your idea of financial compliance is the issuance of a privacy statement, and a written document you created or bought five years ago, then you are playing Russian roulette with the FTC and identity thieves, and you and your customers will be the big losers,” says Terry Dortch, President of Automotive Compliance Consultants.

Recent incidences prove how vulnerable dealerships can be and how the FTC is changing to enforce auto dealership compliance. The FTC alleged that the dealership failed to take reasonable safeguards to protect and secure customer information.  The dealership hit the FTC’s radar when the information of approximately 95,000 customers was compromised and made available on a P2P network. 

How does your dealership’s network security compare to what the FTC said this dealership failed to do:

• Assess risks to the consumer personal information it collected and stored on line.

• Adopt policies, such as an incident response plan, to prevent, or limit the extent of unauthorized disclosure of personal information.

• Use reasonable methods to prevent, detect and investigate unauthorized access to personal information on its networks such as inspecting outgoing transmissions to the Internet to identify unauthorized disclosure of personal information.

• Adequately train employees about information security.

• Employ reasonable measures to respond to unauthorized access to personal information.

“The message being sent by the FTC should concern every dealer who’s unsure of just how secure and how compliant his or her dealership is today,” Dortch adds.

Automotive Compliance Consultants specializes in dealership compliance, providing in-dealership consultations and analysis, compliance audits, and training, and offers solutions for all compliance needs. The company’s experts have extensive experience in the retail automotive industry and focus exclusively on dealership compliance issues. For more information, contact Terry Dortch at terry_dortch@compliantnow.com or visit www.compliantnow.com.

06/28/12