This is becoming old hat but another huge privacy exposure was revealed over a week ago. Apparently, 63,000 SSNs of individuals who received Department of Agriculture grants have been out in public view since 1996. The offending website was FedSpending.org and the problem has since been corrected. It's hard to blame FedSpending, a group created by OMB Watch to keep an eye on government spending, since it essentially publishes government contracts and legal documents in a free, searchable database.
The real problem is that privacy info in government related documents like loans and grants are passed around indiscriminately. It makes one question if more blatant privacy breaches are out there.
Here's how it was discovered. Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms found the breach when she googled her farm name. To her surprise, the details of her land loan including her SSN came up. She immediately notified the Department of Agriculture, her congressman and the website concerned and the problem was quickly corrected. Of course, Ms Bergmeier understands that her privacy info may not ever be private again.
"If somebody downloaded it, it's still out there in the world," she said. "That will never be a private number again."
The Agriculture Department's response?
"There is no evidence that this information has been misused...However, due to the potential that this information was downloaded prior to being removed, USDA will provide the additional monitoring service."
That's comforting, I guess.
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