It is time for consumers to stand up and demand that our personal information is owned by ourselves, and that we let companies use it. They have no right to lose it or abuse it. They should not be able to resell it. Screw up your security and let my info out, PAY ME!

re: "frequency?"
i happen to work for a major bank and i can assure you that they are happening with increasing frequency...and the ones listed are only the "major ones".
Take that as you may.

[www.boston.com]

Source of the data breach not yet revealed but reportedly affects both Master Card and Visa customers. Stay tuned.

Since legislation that requires reporting started with a California law in 2003 and has been gaining momentum since then it's reasonable to assume that the frequency of reports is climbing faster than the frequency of incidents.

Also, this seems to be a much more comprehensive chronology of data breaches: [www.privacyrights.org]

@chrisjames:
They know that they can lose your info now and only be out a "credit monitoring service" for a year and not have to worry about any financial loss for their stupidity. These people need to have crimonal charges brought against them aswell as monitary loss (large amounts) before they're going to care if someone has your info.