“Insecurity” at the County Clerks’ office makes it to the County Legislature for consideration
As we have repeatedly said, the County Clerk has allowed social security numbers to be posted on the Web. I’m just going to repost this ‘graf from this post:
Like we have said before - Our very Own County Clerk Cheryl Dinolfo runs a County Clerks’ office that posts Social Security numbers on the World Wide Web for all to access. Loss of privacy is the cost of doing busness with the clerks office. Cheryl Dinolfo was warned a year ago and she ducks responsibility today.
Well, turns out that that the County Legislature will address the issue at their October 14th meeting.
ROCHESTER, NY (2008-09-13) The Republican president of the Monroe County legislature has allowed a Democratic bill to be added to the agenda for the next session as a “matter of importance” - despite the fact that the legislation could reignite an campaign feud between a Democratic challenger and a Republican incumbent.
In the legislation county Democrats propose to bar the county clerk from spending money to operate the county’s online record management system if social security numbers are accessible in it.
[snip]
The legislature will vote on the bill on October 14.
Also while I’m at it - check out “Our” Cheryl Dinolfo’s view of why she is doing nothing wrong.
Republican county clerk Cheryl Dinolfo defended her office then, saying those numbers are on documents that were collected prior to her tenure as clerk.
Great, so it is someone else’s fault? She is not responsible for security of records prior to her tenure?
She says her office has strict policies that prevent sensitive information from being posted in online documents.
Um, why are they on the web?
Dinolfo says there have been no reports of identity theft stemming from the availability of the data.
How does this become a measure of success? Does an Identify thief immediately act, or lie in wait. Do people actually know that they have had their identity stolen?
Loss of Privacy is the cost of doing business at the County Clerks’ office.
Related posts:
- Have we forgotten about the County Clerk’s Office posting Social Security numbers on the Internet?
- The loss of your privacy is the cost of doing business at the County Clerk office
- Hasman addresses the privacy violations at the Monroe County Clerks office
- Sombody’s been paying attention
- Must view: It’s More than Social Security Numbers at the Clerks office
No respectable thief would ever let the media or the press or the victim know they’ve stolen their identity.
We just had 2 cases last week in Federal Court…how do we know they weren’t related to data posted at the county clerk’s office.
All it takes is a little time and you too can get the social security numbers of MANY of the elected Republican officials from the Clerk’s website. Her own kin - her blood family - out there for the nice man in Nigeria to take and use.
I said that last week - and I’ll bet they tested it themselves, and realized they too are victims to the incompetence of this clerk. I can almost guarantee that’s not new news in Nigeria or Columbia…it could take years before the fallout of identity theft gets back to the victim - especially once the data is broadcast through the international theft circles.
Bottom line - if it’s on there, it’s probably already been stolen. Point being - it NEVER should have been on there in the first place.
So don’t have a false sense of security if your data is removed. The only true level of security is electing Tom Hasman in November. I can guarantee that come January 1st, that server will be shut down, and you will NEVER find social security numbers online at the clerks office again.
It takes a SECURITY EXPERT like Hasman to fix a mess like this. It takes a political hack like Dinolfo, or her predecessor Maggie Brooks, the former Clerk to create this problem.
Times up - they are THROUGH.
[...] Security numbers which our current county clerk, Cheryl Dinolfo, has posted up on the Internet and this morning he brought us this report from WXXI (I added the last paragraph in bold): ROCHESTER, NY (2008-09-13) [...]
Love it…Cheryl has not once given a good explanation as to why this problem exists. Nor, has she moved to fix it. This is the height of irresponsibility. But, blaming Maggie??? Wow, talk about biting the feeding hand.
What I want to know is, how come she hasn’t been arrested for this? Is it not against the law to have these posted on the web? Is she not ultimately responsible for what is on the site?