Federal Database Exposes Social Security Numbers

[lyger <lyger () attrition org>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/washington/20cnd-data.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1177103032-yUYrfkNKmHsZVZ/hqNZWCw

The Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people who received 
loans or other financial assistance from two Agriculture Department 
programs were disclosed for years in a publicly available database, 
raising concerns about identity theft and other privacy violations.

Officials at the Agriculture Department and the Census Bureau, which 
maintains the database, were evidently unaware that the Social Security 
numbers were accessible in the database until they were notified last week 
by a farmer from Illinois, who stumbled across the database on the 
Internet.

[...]

Ms. Bergmeier said she was able to identify almost 30,000 records in the 
database that contained Social Security numbers.

[...]
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