Briefs

By Eric Dash, The New York Times

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2005. NEW YORK.
If the information is not already missing, 2005 might be recorded in the databanks of history as the year of the consumer privacy breach in the United States.

So far, several American companies - including financial services giants like Bank of America, Citigroup and MasterCard and national retailers like DSW shoes and Ralph Lauren Polo - have announced data breaches. In all, the personal information of more than 50 million consumers has been lost, stolen and even sold to thieves.

While this is happening in the United States, data theft is not a major problem in Britain, Germany or France. One reason may be that European countries have comprehensive national privacy laws and offices of data protection, led by privacy commissioners. The United States, by contrast, has a patchwork of state and federal laws and various agencies responsible for data protection.

Here is the rest of the story.