Headline News
Organization Releases Chronology of Data Breaches
8/30/2010
Privacy Rights Clearing House claims more than 500 million records breached since 2005.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s Chronology of Data Breaches claims that since 2005, more than 500 million sensitive records have been breached.
The Chronology of Data Breaches is a project of the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The list includes incidents involving breached consumer information, such as personal medical records, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse says its chronology reveals a fraction of the total number of data breaches.
"This is a conservative number," says Beth Givens, the organization’s director. "We generally learn about breaches that garner media attention. Unfortunately, many do not. And, because many states do not require companies to report data breaches to a central clearinghouse, data breaches occur that we never hear about.” She adds, “Our chronology is only a sampling.”
The Chronology of Data Breaches, which the Privacy Rights Clearing House has recently expanded, offers consumers and researchers the ability to perform searches to identify trends in data breaches. It also allows visitors to look up businesses, agencies and organizations by name. The chronology can be accessed at www.privacyrights.org/data-breach.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is a nonprofit consumer organization with a consumer information and consumer advocacy mission.