Annual global data breach statistics for 2025 were published by several research organisations, aggregating incidents and affected accounts across countries.
A Global Figure Is A Sum Of Incompatible Parts
The US contributes state-level and federal notifications with statutory triggers. The EU contributes GDPR filings on a different definition. Countries without mandatory disclosure contribute what journalists and researchers happened to find.
Adding those together produces a number whose composition is determined by legislation rather than by incidence. A country that strengthens its disclosure law appears to get worse; one that has none appears clean.
It Is The Corpus’s Own Bias, At Scale
This desk relies on the same sources. When 25-1206 records that five Asian countries account for 62% of tracked regional incidents while this database contains dozens of US and UK files, the explanation is the same in both directions.
Disclosure regimes generate the record. Everything built on that record inherits its shape — this corpus, the global statistics, and any conclusion drawn from either about where the world is most exposed.
What A Global Figure Is Still Good For
Direction over time within a stable methodology, and comparison between periods rather than between places.
What it cannot support is any statement of the form "country X is worse than country Y", which is nonetheless the use these figures are most often put to. Graded medium: the individual studies are competently done and the aggregation problem is structural rather than a fault of any of them.
Built on published global breach statistics, listed below. It describes an aggregation limitation rather than disputing any particular study. Corrections: corrections@forensicpost.com.