Posts about Data Breaches by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Remember well over a year ago, when last February ChoicePoint announced it had a major data security breach? Since then hundreds of breaches have been announced — over 200 instances involving data on 88 million people. Several bills were proposed in Congress; many Senators and Representatives quickly emphasized the importance of privacy and data security. […]
From CNET: About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them. The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said in a statement […]
I just blogged about the massive data security breach by the Veterans Administration, affecting 26.5 million veterans. Bob Sullivan has a terrific post comparing the government’s response to its data security breach to that of the businesses that have had such breaches in the past:
The AP reports an enormous breach of data security by the government: Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday. The information involved mainly those veterans who served and have been discharged since 1975, […]
Recently, the FTC announced a settlement in its complaint against the data broker ChoicePoint for a data security breach that resulted in over 160,000 people’s personal information being sold to identity thieves. According to the Washington Post:
ChoicePoint just won’t be outdone. They were, after all, the company that started all the extensive attention on data security breaches. Back in February 2005, ChoicePoint announced that it had improperly sold personal data on about 145,000 people to identity thieves. Pursuant to a California data security breach notice law, ChoicePoint notified the affected individuals […]
I’m getting tired of posting about data security breaches, but this one is a whopper — actually, more like a double whopper. From the AP [link no longer available]:
A Washington Post article discusses the letter the FDIC recently mailed to about 6,000 of its employees that describes a data security breach where employee personal information was compromised:
The FTC just announced a settlement with BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc. From the FTC press release:
From a recent survey: Nearly half of U.S. voters say they don’t shop online because they fear identity thieves may capture their bank-account information, according to a survey released on Wednesday by a technology-industry trade group. These fears are heightened because of the rash of security breaches in recent months. I previously posted about these breaches here and here.