# Protecting Small Business Information Act of 2023

This bill is designed to give small businesses more control over their personal and financial information when they interact with banks and financial institutions. Right now, small business owners often have limited say in how banks use or share their sensitive data, like revenue figures, tax returns, customer lists, or other proprietary business information. This bill would change that by extending privacy protections that currently apply to individual consumers to also cover small businesses.

Specifically, the law would require financial institutions to get permission from small business owners before sharing their confidential business information with third parties. This means a bank couldn't sell your business data to marketing companies, share it with data brokers, or pass it along to other businesses without your explicit consent. Small business owners would also gain the right to know what information banks are collecting about them and how it's being used. If a financial institution violates these rules, small businesses would have the ability to take legal action, similar to what individual consumers can do when their personal information is mishandled.

The practical impact is that small business owners—particularly those with fewer than a certain number of employees—would have stronger privacy protections comparable to what individuals already enjoy. This could prevent sensitive business information from being bought and sold without your knowledge, which could otherwise end up in the hands of competitors or be used in ways that harm your business. For banks and financial institutions, it means they'd need to be more careful about how they handle small business data and would need to implement systems to track and honor privacy requests.

Protecting Small Business Information Act of 2023

Rounds, Mike

Protecting Small Business Information Act of 2023This bill requires the Department of the Treasury to ensure all rules issued under the Corporate Transparency Act have the same effective date. Any final rules already issued must not take effect until all final rules under the act have been issued. The act requires companies to report beneficial ownership information (i.e., the identity of individuals behind a corporate entity) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). &nbsp;