The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through the automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.
U.S. Privacy Protection Study Commission, 1977
Privacy protection is nothing new, but technological advances create many new challenges for protecting that privacy. The Clearinghouse, based in California (of course), is dedicated to raising awareness about the effect of technology on privacy, helping people protect their privacy, and advocating for greater privacy legislatively.The organization keeps an incredible listing of data breaches, dating back to 2005. The total amount of records breached over the past four years is staggering: 252,387,509.
That includes the "biggest ever data breach" of 100 million credit cards by Heartland Payment Services last month. To see data breaches that have occurred in your state, check out this site.
Why are companies not doing more to protect our privacy and our financial data? We were speaking with a friend in finance in New York yesterday, and he casually said he had the ability to access the social security numbers of any of the clients of the bank that he works for. As do hundreds of his colleagues. And this is a Big Bank, of which you may just be a client.
Of course, it's hard to ask companies to be more careful with our data when we ourselves are so careless about it. Many people we know are happy to pirate wireless connections and surf the Net on a stranger's network. Oblivious to the security of the data they're transmitting.
Hmmm... all of a sudden, we're feeling a strong need to take advantage of our Free Credit Report.
Biggest Ever Credit Card Data Breach [Computerworld]
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