Markey, Blumenthal Ask FTC to Investigate Home Depot Breach

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Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and "address" the data breach at Home Depot.

The pair are co-authors of a bill, the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act, to better protect personal information.

Home Depot has confirmed the breach, which the senators say could have affected the company's 2,200 stores and transactions going back to April.

“We are concerned that the retailer’s procedures for detecting and stopping operations to steal customer data are inadequate and we call on the Commission to investigate whether Home Depot’s security procedures meet a reasonable standard,” Markey and Blumenthal said in a letter to FTC Chair Edith Ramirez.

Markey said Monday he wanted an accounting from the company ASAP.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.