California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has announced a record $18.5 million multi-state settlement with Target, Inc. in response to allegations that more than 40 million customers had their payment card information compromised from a data breach during the 2013 holiday season after the retailer failed to provide reasonable data security, according to a press release on the Attorney General’s website.
California will receive more than $1.4 million – the largest share of any state – from the data breach settlement, which also requires Target to adopt advanced measures to secure customer information, employ an executive to oversee a comprehensive information security program, and encrypt or otherwise protect payment card information to make it useless if stolen.
“Families should be able to shop without worrying that their financial information is going to get stolen, and Target failed to provide this security,” Attorney General Becerra stated in the press release about the data breach settlement. “This should send a strong message to other companies: you are responsible for protecting your customers’ personal information. Not just sometimes – always.” FULL ARTICLE