Approximately 15 million U.S. residents have their identities and information used fraudulently each year. Along with the use of their identities, they also suffered a combined financial loss amounting to almost $50 billion. Large companies such as Apple, Verizon, Target, Sony and many others have been victims of consumer information hacks. In each of these cases, the personal information of millions of consumers was breached. In the article “Home Depot's 56 Million Card Breach Bigger Than Target's” on September 18, 2014, 56 million cards were breached due to cyber attackers. Before the Home Depot attack, Target had hacked 40 million cards. Company information is constantly breached and consumers end up paying the price. If a company cannot protect the information it collects, it should not collect it. The problem of privacy breaches is linked to the legal environment of businesses, as every business and enterprise holds information about its employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. In addition to all the information they store about other people, most businesses also keep all of their own business information on computers and files. If there were to be a breach at a company, all of the information stored in its systems could be stolen and sold to third parties. There would be significant identity theft, social security fraud and even financial losses. Security breaches have become a significant risk for most businesses today. Security breaches can disrupt business operations, damage brand reputation and customer relationships, and lead to government investigations and class action lawsuits. The current problems are that companies are not doing enough to protect their consumers...... middle of paper. ....entity. The FTC requires the company to send it an annual filing and pay $200,000 as part of the settlement. People value their privacy as much as almost anything else. If people feel their information is at risk, they want to know that steps will be taken to ensure they receive compensation. The FTC has ensured that if companies promise to protect your information, they will, but that's still not enough. The FTC is addressing privacy issues at the business level, but we need more privacy protections at the consumer level. Like the Uniform Commercial Code, we need a uniform set of rules that businesses must follow to ensure consumer protection in a business-driven world. We need federal privacy protections so that everyone in the United States has the same online privacy rights and protections..