Section 10-15-1. Definitions

   As used in this chapter, the term:
      (1) "Administrator" means the administrator of the "Fair Business Practices Act of 1975" appointed pursuant to subsection (a) of Code Section 10-1-395, or the administrator's designee.

   (2) "Business" means a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, association, or other group, however organized and whether or not organized to operate at a profit. The term includes a financial institution organized, chartered, or holding a license or authorization certificate under the laws of this state, any other state, the United States, or any other country, or the parent or the subsidiary of any such financial institution. The term also includes an entity that destroys records. However, for purposes of this chapter, the term shall not include any bank or financial institution that is subject to the privacy and security provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 15 U.S.C. 6801, et seq., as amended, and as it existed on January 31, 2002, nor shall it include any hospital or health care institution licensed under Title 31 which is subject to the privacy and security provisions of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-191, nor any other entity which is governed by federal law, provided that the federal law governing the business requires the business to discard a record containing personal information in the same manner as Code Section 10-15-2.

   (3) "Cardholder" means any person or organization named on the face of a payment card to whom or for whose benefit the payment card is issued.

   (4) "Customer" means an individual who provides personal information to a business for the purpose of purchasing or leasing a product or obtaining a service from the business.

   (5) "Discard" means to throw away, get rid of, or eliminate.

   (6) "Dispose" means the sale or transfer of a record for value to a company or business engaged in the business of record destruction.

   (7) "Merchant" means any person or governmental entity which receives from a cardholder a payment card or information from a payment card as the instrument for obtaining, purchasing, or receiving goods, services, money, or anything else of value from a person or governmental entity.

   (8) "Payment card" means a credit card, charge card, debit card, or any other card that is issued to a cardholder and that allows the cardholder to obtain, purchase, or receive goods, services, money, or anything else of value from a merchant.

   (9) "Personal information" means:

      (A) Personally identifiable data about a customer's medical condition, if the data are not generally considered to be public knowledge;

      (B) Personally identifiable data which contain a customer's account or identification number, account balance, balance owing, credit balance, or credit limit, if the data relate to a customer's account or transaction with a business;

      (C) Personally identifiable data provided by a customer to a business upon opening an account or applying for a loan or credit; or

      (D) Personally identifiable data about a customer's federal, state, or local income tax return.
      (10)(A) "Personally identifiable" means capable of being associated with a particular customer through one or more identifiers, including, but not limited to, a customer's fingerprint, photograph, or computerized image, social security number, passport number, driver identification number, personal identification card number, date of birth, medical information, or disability information.

      (B) A customer's name, address, and telephone number shall not be considered personally identifiable data unless one or more of them are used in conjunction with one or more of the identifiers listed in subparagraph (A) of this paragraph.

   (11) "Record" means any material on which written, drawn, printed, spoken, visual, or electromagnetic information is recorded or preserved, regardless of physical form or characteristics.

   (12) "Reencoder" means an electronic device that places encoded information from the magnetic strip or stripe of a payment card onto the magnetic strip or stripe of a different payment card.

   (13) "Scanning device" means a scanner, reader, or any other electronic device that is used to access, read, scan, obtain, memorize, or store, temporarily or permanently, information encoded on the magnetic strip or stripe of a payment card.

Code 1981, § 10-15-1, enacted by Ga. L. 2002, p. 551, § 8; Ga. L. 2003, p. 339, § 1.