Law note · Hawaii

Hawaii Security Breach of Personal Information Act, notice of security breach

cite Haw. Rev. Stat. Secs. 487N-1, 487N-2 stage IMMINENT commencement not set reviewed 2026-08-27

A business that owns or licenses personal information of Hawaii residents, a business conducting business in Hawaii that owns or licenses such information, and a government agency that collects personal information for government purposes must each provide notice, without unreasonable delay, to a person affected by a security breach.

Notice must be clear and conspicuous, describe the incident and the type of personal information exposed, describe remedial steps taken, give a contact number, and advise the recipient to monitor credit reports; substitute notice is available above a $100,000 cost or 200,000-person threshold. Above a 1,000-person notice threshold, the business must also notify the State of Hawaii's Office of Consumer Protection and nationwide consumer reporting agencies.

Hawaii's personal information definition covers only a name combined with a Social Security number, driver's license or state ID number, or a financial account number with an access code or password, excludes information lawfully made public through federal, state, or local government records, and has no biometric, genetic, or health category, so a breach of biometric data alone triggers no notice duty.

What it asks of an app

  • Provide clear and conspicuous notice, without unreasonable delay, to a Hawaii resident affected by a security breach of a system containing their personal information, describing the incident, the type of information exposed, and remedial steps taken.
  • Notify the State of Hawaii's Office of Consumer Protection and nationwide consumer reporting agencies if the breach requires notifying more than 1,000 persons at one time.
  • Do not rely on this statute to cover a breach of biometric, genetic, or health data alone. Hawaii's personal information definition does not include any of those categories.

When LexLint raises it

Declared activities: crawls_web, trains_models, deploys_chatbot, automated_outreach

Primary source: official Hawaii Revised Statutes text, Hawaii State Legislature

← Back to the example  ·  Lint your app →