In a release,  U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. and Ed Markey, D-Mass., said that "ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a recent spate of data breaches," they introduced the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act, "a bill that would help protect consumers’ personal and financial information from hackers by taking a multi-pronged approach to combating the risks associated with data breaches. Already, a little more than a month into the new year, there have been at least 30 reported data breaches that have left the personal and financial information of over 99,000 consumers at risk."  

Blumenthal said, also in the release, “This bill will give consumers much stronger, industry-wide protections against massive thefts of private financial information by hackers and digital thieves. Stiffer enforcement with stringent penalties are vital to assure that retailers use state of the art safeguards. ” 

Read the proposed act here:

The Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act