The Prevention and Mitigation of Breaches of Personal Information Databases
Abstract
It seems that everything—from our cars to the search engines we use—collects information about us and our activities. Breaches compromising personal information are an unfortunate by-product of our modern information-intensive society. In this paper, we examine previous research on this problem from diverse perspectives. We then develop an interdisciplinary framework that examines parties involved, benefits derived by each party, losses from a breach, and the ability of each party to mitigate losses. Within this framework, appropriate economic theories are extended to other types of breaches and frauds.