> Until governments legislate that the punishment for exposing personal data is more expensive
The EU did. Everyone, for some inexplicable reason hates it; and not the casual hate one spews when it rains or traffic is bad but a deep visceral hatred normally reserved for war criminals or kiddie fiddlers.
In a 6 month period I had; - My private health insurance data leaked (AHM/Medibank) - including claim history, medicare number, password, username, email, phone - My old phone account (Optus) - including my phone number, my current passport number(!!!), current address, phone. - My old credit card account (Latitude finance) - including my current passport, driver license, my income history and bank statements that was provided to get the credit card originally, address, phone, email
The ONLY thing that any of these businesses have done is pay for a replacement passport and a 12 month credit watch. Optus wasn't even a 'breech', they had an API exposed with the all the data!
How is someone meant to protect themselves from this? It is pure negligence. Until governments legislate that the punishment for exposing personal data is more expensive than the work and infrastructure required to keep it secure this will continue to happen.