The San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse says there have been more than half a billion data breaches in the United States since 2005.
A school district in St. Louis left documents filled with students' names and social security numbers near a dumpster. A hospital in Philadelphia lost a laptop with medical information on 24,000 patients.
These are just some of the most recent data breaches listed in the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse report.
PRC's Rainey Reitman says the number of security lapses is shocking.
"This is clear evidence that consumers are not being adequately protected, that their information is being exposed again and again," Reitman says. "And we need to do more to ensure that companies take data security seriously."
Reitman says portable devices like laptops, thumb drives, and DVDs are especially vulnerable to being breached.
