Record Destruction (Personal Information Disposal)
MT Record Destruction
Data security
Businesses must destroy customer records containing personal information once they no longer need to keep them, by shredding, erasing or otherwise making the information unreadable. The law is part of Montana's identity-theft prevention statutes.
- Where
- Montana
- Citation
- Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1703
- Status
- In force
- In force since
- 2005-10-01
- Enforced by
- Montana Department of Justice, Office of Consumer Protection (Attorney General)
- People can sue
- Limited
- Penalties
- Treated as an unfair trade practice (30-14-1705(3)); injunction and civil fines up to $10,000 per willful violation (30-14-142); individual consumer actions for ascertainable loss under 30-14-133.
- Applies to
- Businesses (including financial institutions, excluding Title 33 insurance-regulated industries) holding customer records containing personal information (30-14-1702(1), 30-14-1703)
Security duties
- Take all reasonable steps to destroy, or arrange destruction of, customer records containing personal information that no longer need to be kept, by shredding, erasing or otherwise making the information unreadable or undecipherable.Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1703
Sources
Checked against these sources on 2026-09-25 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.
Unverified: Effective date inferred from history note (En. Sec. 6, Ch. 518, L. 2005) and the default October 1 rule.
Research reference, not legal advice.