Water utilities and AWWA are scrambling to get up to speed on a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule that includes water utilities among financial entities that must have a written plan by November 1 describing how they will identify and respond to "red flags" that indicate identity theft involving customer accounts. AWWA alerted utilities about the rule in early September and held a Washington, D.C., Brown-bag Webcast October 8, with Alan Roberson moderating. Pavneet Singh, attorney in the FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, said the FTC sent out a business alert in October 2007 and published notice of the joint final rules and guidelines in the Federal Register Nov. 9, 2007, noting that compliance is mandatory by Nov. 1,2008. The FTC, which according to Singh has enforcement responsibility for this amendment to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, is still working on the rule's compliance guide. However, she thought the guidance would be out before the November 1 deadline and said that it will be useful to utilities trying to put their plans together.
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