Losing control of people's personal information

It seems like every month now I hear of another breach of security that has release people's personal information into the world for crooks to use. Sometimes it is crooks that have broken into a company's computer to steal the information. Sometimes it is a mistake by a company or government agency that allows the information to get published on the internet. Sometimes it is a stolen laptop.

Of all these ways for people's personal information to get released having a laptop stolen is the most preventable. A work laptop should never contain data. Ever. It should contain programs to access the data but the data should never be stored on the laptop. If for some reason it absolutely must be stored on the laptop it should be encrypted.

The next most preventable mistake is allowing crooks to steal the information. A company or government agency should have people protecting their computers. Their software should have the latest security patches and the access of data should be constantly monitored for suspicious activity.

The least preventable is mistakes. These are preventable but will always happen. It doesn't mean they should be tolerated, and certainly all efforts should be made to prevent them.

I think we should have laws to protect people's information. I think a company that loses control of a person's information and reports it immediately should pay the person a huge amount of money. A company that loses control and doesn't report it should pay that same amount for each day it went unreported. Government agencies that lose control should pay the same huge amount but also require firing of all involved up through and including the president of the country if necessary. And if the agency doesn't report the lose then jail terms of one week for every day before the incident was reported should be imposed.

Will it ever happen? No. But that is what should happen.