Data Breach Chronology Database - Single User Download Pass (2025-03)

Data Breach Chronology v2.0-202503

This is the Data Breach Chronology v2.0-202502, last updated on March 7, 2025, containing information on U.S. reported data breaches from 2005 through present day. Please see the included readme for a full list of features and more information about the project.

This license provides a single user with two download opportunities of the database. The database may be used by a single user within your organization and integrated into commercial products, but may not be redistributed in its entirety.

By downloading the Data Breach Chronology Database you agree to our Terms of Service.

FAQs and more information about our pricing can be found here.

What's Included

Your download will be provided as a ZIP file containing:

• Complete database in SQLite format (.db) with full notification letter text
• Excel workbook (.xlsx) and CSV export for simplified access
• Comprehensive documentation

Try Before You Buy

A sample download of the database is available here, including documentation and sample data across all provided formats:

• Download SQLite sample (.db file, recommended)
• Download Excel sample (.xlsx file)
• Download CSV sample (.csv file)

Important: To prevent issues when importing into Excel, the pdf_contents_cleaned field is omitted from both the Excel and CSV exports. Despite our best efforts—such as truncating long text fields or splitting data across multiple sheets—this field was frequently causing problems. Excel has strict limits on the number of characters allowed per cell (32,767 characters) and a maximum number of URLs per sheet; including the full text often led to workbook corruption or import errors.

We strongly recommend working with the SQLite (.db) export if you need access to the full text of breach notifications. The Excel and CSV formats have been optimized for quick access and ease of use, but they omit some fields to ensure data integrity and compatibility with Excel.

Pricing

We offer a significant discount for academics. However, if you are unable to purchase and working on a project that may advance consumer privacy or security in alignment with our mission, you may apply for a single download pass fee waiver.

Version 2.0 Features

Starting with January 2025, Version 2.0 represents years of work expanding and improving our database. Key enhancements include:

• Coverage expanded to over 70,000 notifications across all 50 states
• Analysis of more than 22,000 digitized notification letters
• Normalized organization names and breach event groupings for improved tracking
• Enhanced classification systems and data processing
• Regular monthly updates (with plans for more frequent releases)

Version 2.0 represents a complete overhaul of our database. Users of previous versions should note that these improvements have more than doubled our coverage and enhanced our methodologies - but will result in differences between historical data and current datasets due to the improvements.

Please see the included readme for a complete list of database fields, usage instructions, and technical documentation.