Identity Theft and securing data are serious issues for community managers. You have in your possession sensitive information that criminals looking to perpetrate identity theft are trying to get their hands on. It's important in this day and age, with everyone getting online, and an evolving legislative landscape, to chose a technology partner that is already taking steps to keep your homeowner information secure.
"The objectives of this regulation are to insure the security and confidentiality of customer information in a manner fully consistent with industry standards; protect against anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such information; and protect against unauthorized access to or use of such information that may result in substantial harm or inconvenience to any consumer.”
- Massachusetts Identity Theft Law effective March 1, 2010
Above is an excerpt of the “Purpose” section of the new Massachusetts Identity Theft Law which went into law this year. A similar identity theft law has also been passed in Nevada. Both laws carry fines for non-compliance that would allow an unauthorized person (a “hacker”) to access “sensitive personal information” about individuals. These penalties are severe enough to cause financial ruin to most management companies and for this reason TOPS has implemented comprehensive security in a way that does not take away any of the functionality in the application.
Some parties with vested interests in obtaining owner information from TOPS Software have been saying the new Identity Theft Laws don’t apply to property management companies. If you think not, I suggest you read the highlighted sections of the attached state laws, also the two pending federal bills, Senate bill #1490 and House of Representatives bill #2221. There is a clear trend across the country to adopt Identity Theft Laws to protect “sensitive personal information” about individuals stored on any computer system connected to the internet. A link to an opinion letter from our company attorney with his recommendation that we encrypt or otherwise secure the owner information contained in TOPS in order to protect our customers from being fined can also be found on this web page. Everyone should take 2 minutes to read this opinion letter.
Because the fines for unprotected “sensitive personal information” can be substantial, perhaps substantial enough to bankrupt your organization, we would rather err on the side of caution in this matter and try to protect the owner, vendor and employee information in TOPS Software.
Authorized TOPS Partners
The new Identity Theft Protection in TOPS will not affect your ability to continue working with any and all authorized TOPS business partners, such as banks and resale disclosure companies listed on the “Partner” page of our www.topssoft.com web site. We have or are in the process of updating our interfaces with all authorized TOPS business partners. If you use any of these partners, you may have to wait a brief period of time before upgrading to TOPS Professional until the appropriate interfaces have been updated and released.
Other Providers
The ability to export TOPS data has not been affected by the Identity Theft Protection. Other service providers should be able to use the built-in export utilities to extract whatever data they need from TOPS in order to continue providing service to our customers. But please be aware, the export files may contain “sensitive personal information” and should be purged regularly so they do not create a security breach for you. We cannot take any responsibility for loss or theft of “sensitive personal information” due to use of our file export utilities.
For any questions or concerns, please contact your TOPS Account Executive at 800-760-9966.