More Private Data Is Burgled From Government Than Hacked While the news aims to spread fear that ‘hackers’ are going to steal your identity, numbers show that they really should be fearful of our government. “America’s universities admit that, in the first half of 2006, they let a million Social Security numbers slip through their fingers. Accountants, banks and brokerages have proven themselves to be half as competent at protecting your critical data, conceding to more than 1.9 million lost SSNs. And the health care industry fares even worse: 2.4 million. But the King of Data Giveaways, with over 40 million Social Security numbers stolen in just six months, is your government… local, state and federal. The raw data from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s latest report bears me out.” I remember seeing that list sometime last year, but that it’s still out there, and being added to regularly, is proof that this is going to continue to get worse before it gets any better. Time for the government to take things a bit more seriously in terms of security.