On June 20, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed SB 1524, which significantly revises and strengthens the state’s data breach notice law, making it among the toughest in the country. The bill shortens the timeline for providing notice of a data breach to require notice to consumers within 30 days of the “determination of a breach.” The bill also adds a parallel requirement to notify the state attorney general’s office for an incident affecting more than 500 state residents. The bill also provides that consumer notice by email will no longer require an E-SIGN consent. The new law clarifies the application of data breach requirements by amending the definition of “covered entity” to mean “a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, trust, estate, cooperative, association, or other commercial entity that acquires, maintains, stores, or uses personal information.” The bill also expands the definition of “personal information” to add, as was done in California last year, user name or e-mail address, in combination with a password or security question and answer that would permit access to an online account. The bill requires covered entities to take reasonable measures to (i) protect and secure data in electronic form containing personal information and (ii) dispose, or arrange for the disposal, of customer records containing personal information within its custody or control when the records are no longer to be retained. Finally, the bill revised the risk of harm provision in two noteworthy ways: (i) like Connecticut and Alaska, law enforcement must be consulted to employ the exemption to noticeand (ii) the exemption appears to cover only consumer notice, not AG notice. The changes take effect July 1, 2014.