etiolated consumer\citizen

Shedding light on who's doing what with your private information. Searchable Attrition.org DLDOS index.

Counter of Records Lost this year (estimated):

Records Lost/Stolen Per Year

YearRecords Lost/StolenRecords Per Second
2008 15,121,267 1.0803
2007 162,565,103 5.1549
2006 49,679,333 1.5753
2005 55,986,942 1.7753
2004 31,895,900 1.0114
2003 6,405,000 0.2031
2002 4,960 0.0002

Incidents Reported Per Year

YearIncidents ReportedIncidents Per Week
2008 132 5.7391
2007 326 6.2692
2006 346 6.6538
2005 138 2.6538
2004 21 0.4038
2003 11 0.2115
2002 3 0.0577

Why the huge jump after 2003?

In 2003, California Senate Bill 1386 took effect, requiring Businesses that operate in California or have clientelle in California to notify its residents promptly in the event of a security breach that compromised personal information.

It took some time for organizations to realize the impact of this bill. California being a rather large state meant that most organizations would be faced with notification requirements in the event of any break-in, and soon would realize that notifying only California residents was a great way to get 49 other attorney general's breathing down your neck.

As a result, more break-ins have been publicized since.