SACRAMENTO – Hundreds of thousands of Californians’ Social Security numbers were vulnerable to abuse by identity thieves because they were made publicly available through the secretary of state’s Web site over the past three years, officials said Thursday.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who took office in January, removed the information from the Web site earlier this week after a state legislator notified her office of the possible vulnerability.
The data was available in Uniform Commercial Code filings – documents that lenders file relating to collateral securing a loan.
About one-third of the 2 million UCC documents on file had the borrower’s name, address, Social Security number and signature. The other two-thirds of the documents were for loans to businesses, rather than individuals.
Officials said there is no evidence directly linking the release of the information to any particular incident of identity theft.
“We should take every step we can to make sure government is not fostering this behavior,” said Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, who alerted Bowen’s office to the breach. “Public records should be a window into the operation of the people’s government. But they should not be the basis for an identity theft starter kit.”
Jones said the records were available for sale over the Internet for $6 each from 2004 until earlier this week, “making this potentially the longest running government Internet breach in California’s history.”
Jones has written legislation, AB 1168, that would modify the UCC forms so that the Social Security number is no longer requested, and prohibit the secretary of state from releasing full Social Security numbers to the public. The bill would also put similar requirements on local governments, such as county registrars, that maintain records such as tax liens and civil judgments.
The UCC forms, according to Bowen’s office, are based on federal forms that have been adopted in most states, and many of those other states are just starting to realize the extent of the problem.
Identity theft is a growing crime in this country, and California has the third-highest rate of such crimes, according to the federal Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse. There were about 45,000 reports of identity theft in California in 2005, or 125 incidents for every 100,000 residents.
Contact Harrison Sheppard at harrison.sheppard@dailynews. com or (916)446-6723.
