Like stalled subway cars and autocorrect changing certain words to “ducking,” data breaches have unfortunately become an accepted part of life.

Sometimes the release of personal information and private preferences comes with mixed sympathy, as in the case of the extra-marital dating site Ashley Madison this summer. Other times, as hackers collect credit-card and Social Security numbers from various retailers, banks, or insurance companies, there’s a collective groan and shuffle to monitor credit scores.

But Monday brought a sadder breach, perhaps the saddest of all time, as VTech, a company that makes tablets and other educational gadgets for kids, announced that data from 5 million of its user accounts was leaked earlier this month, including kids’ names, birthdays, and genders.

The breach happened as an “unauthorized party” accessed a database held on the Learning Lodge app store, which lets users download games, e-books, and other educational tools, according to a statement from VTech. The database held no credit-card information or Social Security numbers, but contained e-mail, mailing, and I.P. addresses, passwords, secret questions and answers for password retrieval, and download history.

This means that somewhere on the black market there is record of not only 5 million children’s birthdays, but perhaps the names of their parents’ first cars, mothers’ maiden names, and favorite pets and elementary-school teachers.

No presidential candidate has issued a statement on the breach as of yet, but we expect a rash of stump speeches mentioning how every little Isabelle or Jack they meet on the campaign trail is devastated, humiliated, and downright mad that the whole world can know that they chose to download the pet-doctor app in a moment of weakness. Our kids deserve better.