There will be a meeting of the Portland/East Hapton Division on Wednesday, December 5, 2007,  at Ameriprise Financial Services, 329 Main Street in Portland.  In addition to the various town reports the meeting will feature Stephen O. Cephas, Diversified Financial Group, as speaker.  He will brief members on the following:

• Identity Theft: Five Ways Thieves Jeopardize Your Company
• Understand the real cost of a security lapse and how new government laws like FACTA, GLBA, and HIPPA, REQUIRES businesses to implement measures to protect non-public information.
• " We will act against businesses that fail to protect their customer data ", FTC Division of Privacy and Identity Protection.
• Along with massive fines, businesses run the risk of up to 600 hours of employee lost time, loss of a significant percent of their customer base, and in some cases litigation expenses.
• Businesses need to educate themselves on the liabilities this issue presents, but also on some simple measures that you can take to dramatically limit those liabilities. We will review several of the options that are available.