Via dailybreeze.com -
SACRAMENTO -- Hundreds of thousands of Californians' Social Security numbers have been made publicly available for the past three years on the secretary of state's Web site, officials said Thursday.
The personal data was removed from Secretary of State Debra Bowen's Web site earlier this week after a state legislator notified her office of the situation and the vulnerability to identity theft. While officials said there is no evidence directly linking the release of the information to any particular incidents, such data is commonly used by identity thieves.
The data was available in Uniform Commercial Code filings -- documents that lenders file relating to collateral securing a loan.
About one-third of the 2 million documents on file had the borrower's name, address, Social Security number and signature. The other two-thirds of the documents were for loans to businesses rather than individuals. Bowen's office said it was unclear how many of the documents may have been purchased through the site, but said on an average day about 300 were viewed online.
The documents were available only to account users, which are mostly financial institutions, although there are no restrictions on who can create an account. The Web site has about 1,500 regular users, another 28,000 casual users and 14 "bulk" users.
Bowen, who took office in January, said the issue shows the balance governments have to strike in providing the public with access to records while also protecting privacy rights. "Making government open, accessible, and Internet-friendly while simultaneously ensuring that people's privacy is protected isn't always easy to do," Bowen said in a written statement.
California has the third-highest rate of identity theft crimes in the nation, according to the federal Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse. There were about 45,000 reports of identity theft in California in 2005, or 125 incidents for every 100,000 residents.
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Who needs ID hackers when you have companies and governments like this?
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