When Data Goes Missing: Will You Even Know? - Computerworld:

Just what are the odds? What are you gambling on?

Recent reports of company-compiled personal data gone missing (such as Marriott losing many thousands of vacation club records), while clearly important, is really just the tip of the iceberg. What customers really need to ask of companies is, What other data has been lost? And in all likelihood, there is absolutely no way for the companies to know. The truth of the matter is, reported cases of massive data loss are just the ones they know about. And this problem will only grow with the proliferation of tiny personal mass-storage devices of dramatically increasing capacity.

Does your organization even have a policy about such things? An interesting, if somewhat scary read.

What's the answer? Are we looking for a technical fix to what is really, a social problem?