U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: SSNs on public records-- not good

MASSPIRG's Eric Bourassa has called on Secretary of State William Galvin, who has been an investor champion, to become a privacy champion, too. So far, Galvin has resisted MASSPIRG's calls to remove Social Security Numbers, the basic operating toolkit of identity thieves, from public records and filings on his website. Here's today's AP story Mass. needs law banning private data on state Web sites, some say and here is one from yesterday: Privacy advocates blast Galvin. As privacy expert Robert Ellis Smith points out in today's story, states, including Vermont, have begun passing laws to redact or remove SSNs from older records, and prohibit their disclosure on newer records:

"Social Security numbers are inappropriate on Web sites, period," said Robert Ellis Smith, who publishes the online newsletter Privacy Journal, based in Providence, R.I. "State and county officials rush to put information online. Only now, after the fact, have they started to have these redaction laws."

There is no question at all that the PIRGs and other reform organizations support the public's right-to-know and the need for government in the sunshine. But placing the keys to identity theft out in plain view serves no government purpose, and risks the financial health of millions of Americans. The activist website The Virginia Watchdog chronicles the battle -- state by state and town clerk by town clerk -- to remove non-public personal information from government websites. And, the site shows how easy it is to mine the data.