Mark's Notebook


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Security breaches not on rise

San Francisco Chronicle

Monday 16 May 2005, 3:51 pm
Keywords: Computer Topics , News Articles

By Carrie Kirby, Chronicle Staff Writer

Consumer-privacy watchdogs say that contrary to appearances, there has probably not been an increase in security breaches.

Instead, there has been more disclosure, precipitated by a California law that requires data-holding organizations -- from universities to banks to data aggregators like ChoicePoint -- to notify Californians if anyone gains unauthorized access to unencrypted data, such as driver's license, Social Security and account numbers.

"I think there have always been as many security breaches as we've seen in the last few months," said Beth Givens, founder and director of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Deigo. "The California security- breach notice law has increased the visibility of those breaches."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/16/BUG1HCO
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