Contact: John Harrington – 707.252.6166
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2005
Napa Valley, California
Safeguarding Customer Data at Bank of America
Bank of America shareholder resolution aimed at protecting client confidential data kept off ballot.
Harrington Investments, Inc., a Napa-based socially responsible investment advisory firm, has fired off a letter to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and California Senators Boxer and Feinstein, calling on them to adopt legislation to safeguard consumer identity theft.
"Financial institutions and data brokers should be required to safeguard customer confidential financial data and information," said John Harrington, President/CEO of Harrington Investments, Inc. (HII). "Registered Investment Advisors regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are required to protect investors' confidential information, so why shouldn't data brokers, finance companies, and banks?"
Harrington Investments, Inc. introduced a shareholder resolution at Bank of America requesting the bank to report on the company's policies and procedures for ensuring that customer information remain confidential in all business operations 'outsourced' to India or any other offshore locations. HII was concerned about instances where overseas workers had threatened to divulge confidential customer information if they were not paid off. These incidents, coupled with the fact that U.S. consumer privacy protection laws are unenforceable overseas, caused HII to worry about the company's potential liabilities and led HII to file the resolution.
The shareholder resolution in 2004 received over 9% of the vote from Bank of America shareholders. The SEC, however, allowed the bank to omit the same resolution from the proxy material for the 2005 meeting. This ruling came just days after it was publicly disclosed that Bank of America had lost several computer data tapes containing the confidential personal information of 1.2 million federal employees, including most U.S. Senate members. The tapes contained social security numbers and addresses, making employees vulnerable to having their identities stolen.
Harrington continued: "What a coincidence that our shareholder resolution was prevented from appearing on the ballot after it was disclosed that Bank of America data tapes were lost. Apparently, B of A's security programs are not as secure as the company would have us believe. It is doubtful that valuable customer data tapes would have been lost had the proper security systems been in place. I think we have much to worry about, whether sensitive data is stored in this country or overseas. It's clear that customer confidential financial information can be stolen or lost."
"The financial services industry and data collectors should not be allowed to police themselves. American identity theft is only going to increase, as long as we allow corporations to export this data electronically all over the world and allow them to sell and transmit the data to maximize profit," he concluded.
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