It has come to light that a bill to better protect student information from compromising breaches online is being pushed by the White House under Barack Obama’s reign. The bill is the result of a partnership with a Republican congressman on the U.S. House of Representatives’ leadership team, and Democrats in both the House and Senate.

President Obama had made his intentions clear regarding data protection and online privacy earlier this year, calling for stringent data laws to protect citizens privacy and data, while speaking at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 9, 2015.

The legislation, will ensure that strict measures are taken to protect student information and have it accessible only for educational and research purposes, according to a report published by Reuters on Thursday.

“Protecting America’s children from Big Data shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” said Representative Luke Messer of Indiana, chairman of the House’s Republican Policy Committee in a statement. He is working with Democratic Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, who is an Internet entrepreneur responsible for founding a network of charter schools, to bring forth the legislation within the next two weeks.

Anthem Inc, a major health insurer in the U.S. suffered a breach on Wednesday that F.B.I. is now reportedly investigating. Personal information of around 80 million people has been compromised.

“I am trying to make the most of the phrase, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste,'” said President Obama’s cybersecurity adviser Michael Daniel at an online seminar organized by Bloomberg Government. Citing such incidents, the adviser justified the push to the cyber legislation with Congress.

2014 witnessed a slew of online security breaches including those at Home Depot, Target and J.P. Morgan. With increasing internet activity, through social networking, online trading, etc., where miscreants can track and hack information for monetary gains, it becomes imperative for stringent measures to armour such vulnerabilities.

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In the aftermath of the various data breaches that occurred in 2014 across enterprises, retailers and government organisations, including the much speculated hack in November of Sony Pictures, U.S. President Barack Obama called for stringent data laws to protect citizen privacy and data, while speaking at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 9, 2015.

“Major companies get hacked. America’s personal information, including financial information, gets stolen. And the problem is growing and it costs us billions of dollars,” he said.

It is expected that the U.S. President will call for ‘new federal legislation requiring hacked private companies to report quickly the compromise of consumer data,’ reports P.C. World. The New York Times has quoted White House officials as saying that emphasis will also be laid on laws to prevent tech firms from generating revenue on data gleaned from schools.

Dubbed the Personal Data Notification and Protection Act will be discussed with the Federal Trade Commission, setting up a 30 days time frame within which hacked companies must report breach. The FTC will hold power to hold companies responsible that do not stay in line with the new laws.

Earlier last week, while the President was promulgating the new data laws, the Twitter feed of U.S. Central Command, was hacked by a miscreant claiming association with Islamic State militants, reports Reuters. The White House is investigating the hack, however, noting that the social media hack was a lesser concern as compared to database breaches.

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(Image credit: Charles Tsevis, via Flickr)