Consumer advocates as well as many business groups have attempted to get federal laws adopted in the United States that would mandate disclosure of security breaches in which some types of private information about identifiable people are exposed. In spite of the obvious logic of having a national standard, these efforts so far have failed.

Data broker ChoicePoint, the victim of a 2004 data breach affecting more than 160,000 U.S. residents, has agreed to strengthen its data security efforts and pay to compensate potential victims of identity theft for a second breach in 2008, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday.