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OPINION & EDITORIAL

Private data needs more state protection

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by Jeff Carnes

Thursday, January 25, 2007

It is amazing how much personal information you can find out about someone just through public records and Internet access.

Some websites are useful for allowing someone moving into a new apartment to know who may be dangerous in the area. The Wisconsin Department of Corrections Sex Offender Registry allows anyone to search for sex offenders by name or ZIP code. In addition, the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website contains records of every court proceeding in the state, including traffic tickets — and it is open to the public. (Before you search for me, my record is clean in the state of Wisconsin.)

Information on court rulings, speeding tickets and sex offenders has always been public, and it should be no surprise that the Internet is a useful tool for anyone to access this information from the convenience of home instead of going downtown to the Dane County Courthouse. What is surprising, however, is the fact that the state sells everything from addresses to driver's license numbers.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported Jan. 22 that various agencies — including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Natural Resources and the State Elections Board — have sold lists of personal information about drivers, hunters and voters registered in Wisconsin to those deemed to have a need for the information. Insurance companies buy information from the state in order to track drivers. Outdoor companies, such as Bass Pro Shops, have bought lists of those who have registered for hunting licenses. Even the Republican Party of Wisconsin bought lists of deer and bow hunters in 2006.

State officials do collect sensitive information about Wisconsinites, including Social Security numbers and signatures on driver's licenses. This information is not sold to those seeking information for marketing or political mailings. The Department of Revenue, however, accidentally released Social Security numbers of approximately 170,000 taxpayers to the printers of the 2006 state income tax booklets, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Department of Revenue attempted to stop the mailing of as many of these booklets as possible, but it is difficult to say how many booklets were actually mailed out after the New Year.

What is even more disconcerting is the fact that the state has no idea how much personal information it has about its citizens. A spokesperson for the Department of Administration told The Wisconsin State Journal that no office keeps track of how much information the state has about us. It is not even known whether this personal information is well-protected. Considering that the state accidentally released the most personal piece of personal information, the Social Security number, there is obviously a lack of security for our sensitive information.

Currently, state Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, is drafting a bill that would make it illegal for the state to give unnecessary personal information to contractors, such at the printers of the state tax booklets. This is a first step in order to ensure information that we fill out on driver's and hunting license forms, voter registration applications and tax forms is not given to those who do not need it.

More importantly, there is an even bigger problem in terms of the security of our personal information. The state must conduct an internal audit in order to find out first which agency has what information about us and then decide what information is necessary for each agency to have.

Finding out what information the state has is only a partial solution, however. The real questions are how secure our personal information is and what measures the state is taking in order to protect our identities. The state has already shown that our Social Security numbers are not protected. Considering the fact the state does not even know what personal information it has, other leaks nobody knows about may have occurred.

In a democracy, information sharing is a fact of life. Often, this information is useful and beneficial for us as a society, like the sex offender registry. Some information, however, is personal and not for the public to see, and the state government has an obligation to protect such information. Currently, the state is not fulfilling this obligation. While state lawmakers are considering legislation to make our information secure, it must go further to fix something that puts every driver, hunter, voter and taxpayer at risk for identity theft. The state must perform a complete overhaul of its information databases in order to ascertain what information it has and what steps it is taking to protect the information that, if leaked, could result in the destruction of our credit and identities for years to come.

Jeff Carnes (jmcarnes@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in linguistics.

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Anonymous (January 26, 2007 @ 11:15am):

Jeff, have you read the state-funded eHealth article by Keegan?
http://badgerherald.com/news/2007/01/26/doyle_to_budge_more_.php

Mary Kay Grasmick, Wisconsin Hospital Association spokesperson, said,

"I'm not an IT person, but I would expect hospitals to put up firewalls and every protection like any other business," Grasmick said. "The advantages far outweigh the risks."

Um, it looks like our state is in very competent hands.

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