[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 224 (Wednesday, November 20, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64074-64076]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-25109]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

[File No. 162 3130]


InfoTrax Systems, L.C. and Mark Rawlins; Analysis To Aid Public 
Comment

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Proposed consent agreement; Request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged 
violations of federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or 
practices. The attached Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes both 
the allegations in the complaint and the terms of the consent order--
embodied in the consent agreement--that would settle these allegations.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 20, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file comments online or on paper, by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comment part of the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write: ``InfoTrax Systems, 
L.C. and Mark Rawlins; File No. 162 3130'' on your comment, and file 
your comment online at https://www.regulations.gov by following the 
instructions on the web-based form. If you prefer to file your comment 
on paper, mail your comment to the following address: Federal Trade 
Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 
CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the 
following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 
Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW, 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex 
D), Washington, DC 20024.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Andrea Arias (202-326-2715), Bureau of 
Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue 
NW, Washington, DC 20580.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to Section 6(f) of the Federal 
Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 2.34, 16 CFR 2.34, 
notice is hereby given that the above-captioned consent agreement 
containing a consent order to cease and desist, having been filed with 
and accepted, subject to final approval, by the Commission, has been 
placed on the public record for a period of thirty (30) days. The 
following Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes the terms of the 
consent agreement and the allegations in the complaint. An electronic 
copy of the full text of the consent agreement package can be obtained 
from the FTC Home Page (for November 12, 2019), on the World Wide Web, 
at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/commission-actions.
    You can file a comment online or on paper. For the Commission to 
consider your comment, we must receive it on or before December 20, 
2019. Write ``InfoTrax Systems, L.C. and Mark Rawlins; File No. 162 
3130'' on your comment. Your comment--including your name and your 
state--will be placed on the public record of this proceeding, 
including, to the extent practicable, on the https://www.regulations.gov website.
    Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to 
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit 
your comments online through the https://www.regulations.gov website.
    If you prefer to file your comment on paper, write ``InfoTrax 
Systems, L.C. and Mark Rawlins; File No. 162 3130'' on your comment and 
on the envelope, and mail your comment to the following address: 
Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue NW, Suite CC-5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20580; or deliver 
your comment to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office 
of the Secretary, Constitution Center, 400 7th Street SW, 5th Floor, 
Suite 5610 (Annex D), Washington, DC 20024. If possible, submit your 
paper comment to the Commission by courier or overnight service.
    Because your comment will be placed on the publicly accessible 
website at https://www.regulations.gov, you are solely responsible for 
making sure that your comment does not include any sensitive or 
confidential information. In particular, your comment should not 
include any sensitive personal information, such as your or anyone 
else's Social Security number; date of birth; driver's license number 
or other state identification number, or foreign country equivalent; 
passport number; financial account number; or credit or debit card 
number. You are also solely responsible for making sure that your 
comment does not include any sensitive health information, such as 
medical records or other individually identifiable health information. 
In addition, your comment should not include any ``trade secret or any 
commercial or financial information which . . . is privileged or 
confidential''--as provided by Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 
46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 4.10(a)(2)--including in 
particular competitively sensitive information such as costs, sales 
statistics, inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, manufacturing 
processes, or customer names.
    Comments containing material for which confidential treatment is 
requested must be filed in paper form, must be clearly labeled 
``Confidential,'' and must comply with FTC Rule 4.9(c). In particular, 
the written request for confidential treatment that accompanies the 
comment must include the factual and legal basis for the request, and 
must identify the specific portions of the comment to be withheld from 
the public record. See FTC Rule 4.9(c). Your comment will be kept 
confidential only if the General Counsel grants your request in 
accordance with the law and the public interest. Once your comment has 
been posted on the public FTC website--as legally required by FTC Rule 
4.9(b)--we cannot redact or remove your comment from the FTC website, 
unless you submit a confidentiality request that meets the requirements 
for such treatment under FTC Rule 4.9(c), and the General Counsel 
grants that request.
    Visit the FTC website at http://www.ftc.gov to read this Notice and 
the

[[Page 64075]]

news release describing it. The FTC Act and other laws that the 
Commission administers permit the collection of public comments to 
consider and use in this proceeding, as appropriate. The Commission 
will consider all timely and responsive public comments that it 
receives on or before December 20, 2019. For information on the 
Commission's privacy policy, including routine uses permitted by the 
Privacy Act, see https://www.ftc.gov/site-information/privacy-policy.

Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment

    The Federal Trade Commission (``Commission'') has accepted, subject 
to final approval, an agreement containing a consent order from 
InfoTrax Systems, L.C. (``InfoTrax'') and Mark Rawlins (collectively 
``Respondents'').
    The proposed consent order (``proposed order'') has been placed on 
the public record for thirty (30) days for receipt of comments from 
interested persons. Comments received during this period will become 
part of the public record. After thirty (30) days, the Commission will 
again review the agreement and the comments received, and will decide 
whether it should withdraw from the agreement and take appropriate 
action or make final the agreement's proposed order.
    This matter involves InfoTrax, a technology company that provides 
backend operations systems and online distributor tools for the direct 
sales industry. Respondents have stored personal information about more 
than eleven million consumers.
    The Commission's proposed complaint alleges that Respondents 
violated Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (``FTC 
Act''). The proposed complaint alleges that Respondents engaged in a 
number of unreasonable security practices and that, as a result of 
these practices, an intruder, or intruders, were able to gain 
unauthorized access to consumers' personal information in March 2016. 
During multiple breaches, intruder(s) accessed and/or downloaded the 
personal information of over one million consumers. The types of 
information exposed included full names; physical addresses; email 
addresses; telephone numbers; Social Security Numbers (``SSNs'') or 
other government identification numbers; clients' distributors' user 
IDs and passwords; admin IDs and passwords; payment card information 
including credit or debit card numbers, Card Verification Values 
(``CVVs'') and expiration dates; and bank account information including 
bank account and routing numbers. (However, a particular individual's 
record does not necessarily contain every one of these data types.)
    The proposed complaint alleges that Respondents:
     Failed to have a systematic process for inventorying and 
deleting consumers' personal information stored on InfoTrax's network 
that is no longer necessary;
     Failed to adequately assess the cybersecurity risk posed 
to consumers' personal information stored on InfoTrax's network by 
performing adequate code review of InfoTrax's software, and penetration 
testing of InfoTrax's network and software;
     Failed to detect malicious file uploads by implementing 
protections such as adequate input validation;
     Failed to adequately limit the locations to which third 
parties could upload unknown files on InfoTrax's network;
     Failed to adequately segment InfoTrax's network to ensure 
that one client's distributors could not access another client's data 
on the network;
     Failed to implement safeguards to detect anomalous 
activity and/or cybersecurity events. For example, Respondents failed 
to: (1) Implement an intrusion prevention or detection system to alert 
Respondents of potentially unauthorized queries and/or access to 
InfoTrax's network; (2) use file integrity monitoring tools to 
determine whether any files on InfoTrax's network had been altered; and 
(3) use data loss prevention tools to regularly monitor for 
unauthorized attempts to exfiltrate consumers' personal information 
outside InfoTrax's network boundaries; and
     Stored consumers' personal information, including 
consumers' SSNs, payment card information (including full or partial 
credit card and debit card numbers, CVVs, and expiration dates), bank 
account information (including account and routing numbers), and 
authentication credentials such as user IDs and passwords, in clear, 
readable text on InfoTrax's network.
    The proposed complaint alleges that Respondents could have 
addressed each of the failures described above by implementing readily 
available and relatively low-cost security measures.
    The proposed complaint alleges that Respondents' failure to employ 
reasonable data security practices to protect personal information--
including names, addresses, SSNs, other government identifiers, and 
financial account information--caused or is likely to cause substantial 
injury to consumers that is not outweighed by countervailing benefits 
to consumers or competition and is not reasonably avoidable by 
consumers themselves. Respondents' failure to employ reasonable data 
security practices constitutes an unfair act or practice under Section 
5 of the FTC Act.
    The proposed order contains injunctive provisions addressing the 
alleged unfair conduct. Part I of the proposed order prohibits each 
Covered Business from transferring, selling, sharing, collecting, 
maintaining, or storing personal information unless each Covered 
Business establishes and implements, and thereafter maintains, a 
comprehensive information security program that protects the security, 
confidentiality, and integrity of such personal information.\1\
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    \1\ ``Covered Business'' includes InfoTrax; any business that 
InfoTrax controls, directly or indirectly; and any business that Mr. 
Rawlins controls, directly or indirectly, except for the businesses 
that own, lease, and/or operate a campground in Bunkerville, Nevada, 
and solely to the extent that the businesses are engaged in the 
operation of that campground.
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    Part II of the proposed order requires Respondents to obtain 
initial and biennial data security assessments for twenty (20) years.
    Part III of the proposed order requires Respondents to disclose all 
material facts to the assessor; prohibits Respondents from 
misrepresenting any fact material to the assessments required by Part 
II; and requires Respondents to provide or otherwise make available to 
the assessor all information and material that is relevant to the 
assessment for which there is no reasonable claim of privilege.
    Part IV requires Respondents to submit an annual certification from 
a senior corporate manager (or senior officer of each Covered Business 
responsible for each Covered Business's information security program) 
that: (1) Each Covered Business has implemented the requirements of the 
Order; (2) each Covered Business is not aware of any material 
noncompliance that has not been corrected or disclosed to the 
Commission; and (3) includes a brief description of any covered 
incident involving unauthorized access to or acquisition of personal 
information.
    Part V requires Respondents to submit a report to the Commission of 
the discovery of any covered incident.
    Parts VI through IX of the proposed order are reporting and 
compliance provisions, which include recordkeeping requirements and 
provisions requiring Respondents to provide information or documents 
necessary for the Commission to

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monitor compliance. Part X states that the proposed order will remain 
in effect for twenty (20) years, with certain exceptions.
    The purpose of this analysis is to aid public comment on the 
proposed order. It is not intended to constitute an official 
interpretation of the complaint or proposed order, or to modify in any 
way the proposed order's terms.

    By direction of the Commission.
Joel Christie,
Acting Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2019-25109 Filed 11-19-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6750-01-P