A legislative committee voted 6-1 to report Senate Bill 626 out as a “due pass” after brief debate over who must notify the state and vendors when businesses experience data breaches.

The bill, which Representative Pfeiffer said Senator Howard has worked on with the attorney general's office, “deals with breaches and notification,” and would ensure the attorney general's office is notified along with vendors following a breach. Representative Pfeiffer moved adoption of the measure and yielded for questions.

The measure matters because it clarifies notification channels that affect consumers and small businesses. Committee members pressed on whether small-town cafes, grocers and convenience stores have the information or capacity to perform initial notifications, and whether point-of-sale (POS) vendors rather than individual business owners should bear notification responsibilities.

Representative Deck asked about responsibility for notifying customers and state authorities when small businesses are affected, saying, “for that small town cafe or grocer or convenience store, they may not have access to that information. Would you agree that we should continue to look into that and make sure that the POS system is really who's responsible for some of that?”

Representative Pfeiffer responded, “Yes. I would agree with that and and want to point out that if they're using a mainstream POS system and stuff, the liability is going to fall on the system, not not the individuals, but they would, would have to contact them. But yes, we'll continue to look.” That exchange framed committee concern about whether the bill as drafted places initial notification burdens on businesses that lack technical access to payment-system logs.

The chair put the motion to a recorded vote following the brief discussion. The chair announced the tally as “6 yea, 1 nay.” The committee chair then directed that the representative report the bill out as a due pass.

The transcript records no amendments, no specific statutory citations, no proposed enforcement deadlines, and no floor schedule; those details were not specified during the discussion. The committee discussion did note coordination with the attorney general's office and referenced existing law but did not identify particular statutes by name.

Next steps noted in the meeting record: Representative Pfeiffer will report Senate Bill 626 out of committee as a due pass; the committee did not set a floor date or further procedural deadlines during the discussion.