The Keystone State is pulling out of an insurance producer identification program sponsored by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
Effective Feb. 17, the Pennsylvania insurance department stopped submitting digital fingerprints to the NAIC Digital Fingerprint Central Repository Pilot project, according to Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Diane Koken.
Koken discussed the move Feb. 17 in a letter to the Insurance Agents & Brokers of Pennsylvania.
Koken cites the "national and local debate surrounding the efficacy of this process" along with the ongoing debate about the NAIC Criminal History Record Model Act and congressional efforts to regulate NAIC access to the Criminal Justice Information Services Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Until there is greater consensus surrounding this issue, we are not prepared to continue to submit fingerprints to a repository and have ended our submissions effective today," Koken writes.
The Pennsylvania IA&B has been backing a bill introduced by Rep. Nicholas Micozzie, R-Clifton Heights, Pa., chairman of the Pennsylvania House Insurance Committee, that would prohibit the department from transmitting producer fingerprint records to the NAIC pilot fingerprint repository.
The bill also would prohibit the department from keeping fingerprint records in any other state or national database. The bill has 32 co-sponsors, 15 of whom are members of the House Insurance Committee, according to the Pennsylvania IA&B.