With recent blog posts about the Virginia Watchdog and PulaskiWatch, it was only a matter of time before someone had their identity stolen due to the negligence of county clerks posting sensitive information. Computerworld reported on a Ohio woman suing the county clerk after her identity was stolen. An image of a speeding ticket, containing her personal information, was posted on the county website.
Originally, the case had been dismissed and Cynthia Lambert was out of luck. Her identity had been stolen and there was nowhere else for her to turn. That is until last week, when she was told she could reinstate her legal claim. Greg Hartmann, Hamilton County clerk of courts, violated Ohio's Privacy Act by posting such sensitive information about Ms. Lambert on the county website.
She received the ticket in September of 2003, and had her name, Social Security number, driver's license number, address, birth date, and signature. Having all that information easily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection definitely makes an Identity thief excited. With all that information, especially the Social Security number and signature, an identity thief can open up new lines of credit or take out loans with no risk to their own credit if he or she defaults--which usually happens.
Within a year at least two major purchases had been made in Ms. Lambert's name: $8,000 worth of electronics from Sam's Club and $12,000 in purchases from a Home Depot credit card opened in her name. Both of these purchases were made by showing a driver's license...more specifically Cynthia Lambert's driver's license. The kicker here is that the number on the driver's license used was one digit off from her actual license number. This was done in error by the officer who gave Ms. Lambert the ticket, and when the image of the ticket was posted it had the error as well. In addition, a woman caught for identity theft admitted to being part of a ring of thieves who use county websites to gain information used in the crimes.
The overturned ruling noted that while the county clerk did not act maliciously or break any laws by posting the speeding ticket, laws were broken because the Social Security number was kept in the image of the speeding ticket and published online.
This seems like a no-brainer to me. She has cited specific evidence to show her identity was stolen directly because of the county clerk's unwillingness to redact personal information. States such as California and Florida have made it illegal to post personal information and mandatory to redact data. While posting these records does make some sense, especially when a company needs to find information on a person for the purposes of opening a line of credit and such, there is no need to have Social Security numbers and signatures posted on a public forum. It is just as naive to assume the information is safe as the CEO of LifeLock putting his real Social Security number on TV and assuming no one would steal it. You are asking for trouble either way...
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