Another day, another security breach. This time, it’s Home Depot, and they admit that the data breach may have been ongoing since April.

Home Depot may be the worst one to date. But over just the last couple of years, more than 500 million — yes, more than half a billion — people have had their private information compromised, some more than once.

How many times have you shopped at Home Depot, or Shaw’s, or Target, or Apple, or any number of other locations that have been hit with security breaches, with your debit card, not really thinking about it very much? It’s so much easier and faster than taking the time to write out a paper check, and it doesn’t tend to annoy the people behind you in line, like writing a check can do.

It’s a habit we’ve all fallen into. Not only are we willing to pay using a card in the stores, we’re willing to do it online, where the chances of our data being misused are even higher. Ebay, Amazon, Zappos, Apple and other online merchants have all experienced data breaches in the last few years. We’re willing to give our card number to a call center rep on the phone. We give our card to people in the drive-through lane for coffee or fast food or a box of donuts or a prescription. We swipe it at a gas pump to fill our tank. Sometimes you don’t even have to swipe a card — just tapping one against a machine will do.

When a data breach occurs, it costs the companies involved millions of dollars. Data theft is not a victimless crime. Companies’ insurance costs soar, they have to eat any losses their customers incur, and often, they pay for data monitoring as well.

There are better systems than the one most companies use in the United States. Some companies — such as Wal-mart — have a better track record because they are using a system similar to the ones being used in Europe. Europe has given America a deadline to smarten up its data protection system or essentially lose the European market. So why aren’t American companies making the switch?

It’s mostly the cost of making the switch, which is considerable. And there are virtually no guarantees that hackers won’t someday beat the tougher European encryption. They have no reason to try now, because American businesses and banks are so childishly simple to hack.

Companies might think twice, and then think again, if every person in the U.S. started using old-fashioned paper checks again — for everything. Fast food. Gas. Buying small items. Groceries. Airline tickets. Commerce would slow down, but our personal information would be safer, and we would have better records to prove a case if we do fall victim to identity theft. Cumbersome? Yes. But since companies seem to believe that playing Russian roulette with our personal data is a mere cost of doing business, perhaps using checks would encourage them to invest in safer technology.