Five Republican senators have introduced what’s been dubbed the “Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2012,” as a way to compel corporations and other entities to disclose data breaches.

The bill, introduced in the US Senate on Thursday, will require that data owners, as well as the Secret Service or the FBI, be informed of the loss "as expeditiously as practicable." The entities must disclose how the information was stolen and how to contact the company in question. There are exceptions for such notifications in the case of national security.

Such data, of course, would include Social Security numbers, financial data, and security codes or passwords. Failure to comply would result in a fine of as high as $500,000.

"Some Republicans in Congress have expressed support for something like the Data Security Act because they prefer a singular, national standard rather than differing state laws," The Hill reported—California being one of the states that already has such laws on the books. Worse still, we reported back in 2008 that such laws don’t seem to be having much of an effect on diminishing the number of breaches.

But don’t hold your breath on this passing anytime soon—bills like this have been circulating on Capital Hill for years—going as far back as 2003 (nearly a decade ago!), again in 2006, and again in 2009. Other bills were introduced in the House in 2011, but they all keep stalling.