Eric Besson reports:
As public anxiety persists over regular reports of major data breaches, Social Security numbers of up to thousands of current and former Jefferson County residents can be found online in electronic county records, increasing locals’ vulnerability to a costly and stressful ordeal.
The issue lingers from an unresolved statewide privacy gap spotted almost a decade ago, when it became apparent county clerks were uploading old records containing personal information to their electronic databases.
State lawmakers in 2007 papered over the hole, absolving government workers of wrongdoing by making redactions on old records voluntary.
As a result, a trove of private information, which an expert said can be used to inflict “a lot of damage” on victims in Jefferson County and elsewhere, remains accessible.
Read more on Beaumont Enterprise. I suspect this may be the same issue that CBSDFW referred to in their coverage of a Dallas County breach.