Identity thieves may get the headlines, but data thieves do more harm. Studies in the United States and abroad suggest that two-thirds of departing white-collar employees leave with proprietary data. Few of them are prosecuted. When confidential files fly the coop, companies don’t call the cops they sue.
Not all data leaves with the requisite "scienter" to be called theft. In this wired world, who doesn’t have data on thumb drives, phones, tablets, backup drives, and webmail? You work for a company awhile and you’re going to end up with their stuff on your devices and media. Still, data-theft lawsuits rarely stem from stale data on forgotten media.
