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An Example of What
Happens When People
Fail to Understand Privacy and Technology
A few years ago, legislators in the State of Florida got the 'technology
bug' and mandated that all Florida counties put all public records
on The Web. This is the same "World Wide Web" that is
accessible by anyone from anywhere, from Boca Raton to Bulgaria,
Tampa Bay to Turkestan. Large numbers of document scanners were
purchased and terabytes of TIFF images were produced, catalogued.
and put up on the Web. I don't know if document management companies
lobbied for this legislation, but the technology has now been rolled
out, with horrendous defects that could have potentially deadly
effects.
The link on the right shows you a prime example of what can happen
when people don't fully grasp the relationship between privacy,
technology, and human nature. Anyone on the planet can find intensely
personal details about people who have lived in, or passed through,
Florida. One class of persons are elderly folk whose relatives have
filed power of attorney (these sometimes include banking data along
with SSN and signature).
Another worrying class of victims are U.S. military personnel.
You can find out what their specialties are, their Social Security
Numbers, addresses, relatives, signature, and so forth. The example
on the right is one of these, from Duval County. What you will see
is the record as it appears on the Web except that I added red ink
to blot out key portions of the name of this particular person.
If you go to the Duval County web site you can find thousands of
records just like this, with the name and SSN in place, NOT crossed
out. And you don't have to know a specific person's name to go browsing
for the kind of personally identifiable information that identity
thieves use to rip people off. You don't even need a document viewer
like Acrobat (the county provides one for you).
Needless to say, I think this is wrong and it needs to be changed.
I'm available to help if anyone would like to contact me about efforts
to effect a change. Email scobb99 at yahoo.com.
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