Contact: John Harrington – 707.252.6166
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2005
Napa, California
Privacy Rights Shareholder Resolution Filed at Bank of America
Shareholders at Bank of America will be asked to vote on a resolution requesting that management report on security measures implemented to protect clients from theft or loss of private confidential financial information.
"If Bank of America cannot guarantee the security of confidential information for its existing bank customers, what is the future going to look like as MBNA is absorbed by our company?" asked John Harrington, President and CEO of Harrington Investments, Inc. (HII), the filer of the shareholder resolution.
In late June, Bank of America announced that it was purchasing the giant credit card company MBNA for $35 billion. This will give Bank of America a total of 40 million active credit card accounts and 20% of the U.S. market.
HII's shareholder resolution specifically requests a report from Bank of America on the company's "policies and procedures for ensuring that all personal and private information pertaining to all Bank of America customers will remain confidential in all business operations."
Bank of America is being asked to explain why shareholders should be confident there will be no reoccurrence of this past year's security breaches:
"In December of 2004, Bank of America lost computer data tapes containing the confidential information of 1.2 million federal employees; in May of 2005, about 60,000 Bank of America customers were notified that their personal information had been stolen; also in May of 2005, about 18,000 California Bank of America customers had their confidential data compromised when a laptop computer was stolen; and in August of 2005, another laptop computer that was stolen contained the unencrypted confidential information of an unknown number of Bank of America customers."
The breach of private confidential client financial information has been an ongoing topic of public hearings before Congress, specifically related to identity theft and unauthorized releases of data by financial institutions and data collection and storage companies, such as ChoicePoint.
Harrington concluded by saying: "Banks and credit agencies, including Bank of America, are currently being sued for privacy breaches. Management needs to convince owners of the company that the bank has policies and procedures in place to prevent loss, theft, and fraud and that shareholder value is not going to be compromised by incompetent or neglectful management."
Harrington Investments, Inc., is a Napa, California-based socially responsible investment advisory firm, managing approximately $170 million in institutional and individual client accounts. All client portfolios are socially and environmentally screened, and HII is engaged in pro-active shareholder advocacy on behalf of its clients.
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