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The author of this blog, David T.S. Fraser, is a Canadian privacy lawyer who practices with the firm of McInnes Cooper. He is the author of the Physicians' Privacy Manual. He has a national and international practice advising corporations and individuals on matters related to Canadian privacy laws.

For full contact information and a brief bio, please see David's profile.

Please note that I am only able to provide legal advice to clients. I am not able to provide free legal advice. Any unsolicited information sent to David Fraser cannot be considered to be solicitor-client privileged.

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The views expressed herein are solely the author's and should not be attributed to his employer or clients. Any postings on legal issues are provided as a public service, and do not constitute solicitation or provision of legal advice. The author makes no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained herein or linked to. Nothing herein should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

2007 "worst year ever" for data breaches

Looking back, 2007 has been the worst year ever for privacy breaches. This may only be the case because of mandatory breach reporting in many US jurisdictions, but the numbers are pretty staggering. See: Personal data theft reaches all-time high Chron.com - Houston Chronicle, which includes:

Major 2007 breaches
Some major data breaches disclosed in 2007:
Discount retailer TJX Cos. reports hackers broke into its computer systems and accessed at least 46 million customer records, primarily credit card data. Banks later sue TJX and estimate the breach involved at least 94 million records.
Britain's tax and customs department loses two computer disks containing personal information such as addresses and bank account numbers for about 25 million people. The disks were sent via internal government mail to the government's audit agency, but never arrived.
Dai Nippon Printing Co., a Japanese commercial printing company, says a former contract worker stole nearly 9 million pieces of private data on customers from 43 clients.
A check-authorizing subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services says information on 8.5 million consumers was stolen, allegedly by a former employee.
Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen.
The online job site Monster Worldwide Inc. discovered that con artists had grabbed contact information from resumes of 1.3 million people.

Source: Associated Press research

Labels: 2007 in review, privacy, retail

12/30/2007 09:14:00 PM :: (2 comments) :: Backlinks

Comments:

We keep hearing of privacy laws being violated but what are the consequences? The companies issue apologies and list out their new measures to prevent them from happening again but what legal action can be taken when on-line privacy laws are broken? Has anyone ever done anything against these privacy law violators? Can we do anything?

# posted by

IdeaStormerJorge : December 31, 2007 4:08 AM

The Nevada legislation requires encryption of data in motion. Legislation pending in Michigan and Washington would require encryption of data at rest.