In the past six months a disturbing trend has emerged involving the theft of laptops containing sensitive personal information — most recently from the home of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data analyst. These inevitably involve the loss of names, addresses, Social Security numbers and often credit card or investment account numbers of thousands of people. These losses are embarrassing and costly, and they may be only the tip of an oncoming iceberg, as corporations increasingly equip their outside sales and support people and traveling executives with mobile “gadgets” — smart phones and other handhelds — that not only access corporate e-mail but carry copies of databases on corporate clients, R&D, financials and strategy. Jack Gold, founder and president of J.Gold Associates in Northboro, Mass estimated that these losses cost a minimum of $35 per customer whose personal data is lost, just in notification costs. We estimate companies will spend approximately $35 in notification costs for each exposed customer. So, in the case of Fidelity, it would have cost $7M just to notify all its customers that their data had been exposed. However, the cost does not stop there.