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Notification of data breach involving Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s Office leaves residents confused

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Dissent

Sam Smink reports on a case where 244 people have been notified of a data breach at the Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s Office that involves their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers,, but the notification is so poorly worded that no one really understands how to interpret what they are being told.

Here’s where it gets confusing:

The tax collector’s office says the breach happened because a data file was “erroneously attached during a computer backup process.”

What does that mean? So what if a file got attached during backup? Who got the file? Criminals? Employees? What does this explanation really mean?

And when the news station contacted the county to ask for an explanation, the county gave one of those infuriating “we can’t comment because of an ongoing investigation” responses.

No one’s asking for a comment. People are asking for an explanation of what the heck your breach notice means. The purpose of a notice is to communicate. If you failed to communicate clearly, you need to try again – not hide behind excuses.

Read more on WPTV.

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1 thought on “Notification of data breach involving Palm Beach County Tax Collector’s Office leaves residents confused”

  1. Karen Cox says:
    July 29, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Their firewall must have been breached. Anne Gannon broke away from Palm beach county IT years ago. This is the result. She is a horrible business woman. Palm beach Democratic voters have only themselves to blame for voting her in office.

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