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We Found Your Personal Information Online
We'll tell you who put it there and how to stop them
No matter how careful you think you are when it comes
to who gets access to your personal information, highly skilled identity
thieves utilize a number of techniques in attempts to gain access to your
private information. Shredding your documents and monitoring your credit
does not protect you from criminal access when state and county government
publish your personal information over the internet and sell it in
bulk for commercial exploitation.
Criminals can easily find your Social Security Number,
Driver’s License Number, address, mother’s maiden name, bank account
numbers, signature, and medical information in documents overzealous
county clerks and their vendor partners are publishing on their websites.
What kinds of
documents are local governments publishing online?
The Internet has put
local officials in the position of allowing access to local personal
information under pressure from national and international corporations who
want cheap, easy access to your sensitive records under the label 'public
records'.
The documents include,
but are not limited to, deeds of trust/mortgages, birth and death records,
tax liens, divorce documents, child custody/support and other civil cases.
Very often, these documents contain mothers’ maiden names, Social
Security numbers, dates of birth, financial and medical information and
addresses of crime victims. Any information you would use to identify
yourself can be used by identify thieves to identify themselves as you. Even
signatures displayed on the county websites have been easily clipped and
pasted onto phony documents.
By making the public
record available over the Internet, technology has over-reached the original
goal of providing the stored data to its primary community. The information
is now available to anyone with access to the Internet. Thus, the taxpayers
are paying to provide their own information to a waiting audience of
international identity thieves, stalkers and terrorists.
Who sees my information on the county
website?
Identity thieves
In 2005 a gang of identity thieves confessed to
stealing the identities of at least three hundred Hamilton County, Ohio
residents from information they found on the County website. Police in
Denton County, Texas reported that James and Paula Cook’s home was stolen
when identity thieves stole Mrs. Cook’s maiden name, driver’s license
number, and signature. All three identifiers can be found on the Denton
County Clerk’s official website. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff issued
a press release stating that investigators checked Utah state records and
found that approximately 1,800 social security numbers, belonging to
children under of 13, may have been compromised.
Stalkers
Rebecca Schaefer and Amy Boyer were murdered as a
direct result of information provided in electronic form by state and local
governments. Two weeks after her funeral, identity thieves stole Boyer’s
identity and charged up thousands of dollars for her grieving parents to
pay.
Terrorists
Information that has been published online by county
governments has turned up on computers belonging to terrorists in
Afghanistan and Baath Party officials in Iraq. Al Qaeda training manuals
instruct would-be terrorists that 80% of the information they need can be
found in the public records.
Who Is Responsible when my personal
information is published online?
Clearly, if an
institution or business entity fails to protect your information or is
somehow party to the breach that revealed information they had filed on you,
there is a definite liability question whether it be an institution, an
employer, a credit bureau or the government.
Judge Robert H.
Aldorf wrote, “It is hard to conceive
of a broader invasion of privacy than freely disseminating the information
to the entire world and rendering it instantaneously accessible to all.”
Am I Qualified to
Register a Complaint?
As a taxpayer, you pay the county to collect and
preserve your records, not to publish them online. If you feel threatened by
a local or state agency’s website publishing your deed, mortgages, or other
documents filed in your name over the Internet and believe this breach of
your personal security occurred due to the negligence, error or willful act
of the institution that maintains such critical records - please complete
the form below.
Your complaint will be reviewed by an attorney
specifically interested in matters pertaining to personal Identity Theft.
Register your
Complaint
If you or a loved one is fearful that you may become a
victim of Identity Theft, Stalking, or Terrorism and your state or local
government is making your personal identifiers available online you may
qualify for damages or remedies that may be awarded in a possible lawsuit.
Please click the link below to submit your complaint and we will have a
lawyer review your complaint.
Click here to submit your complaint through
a secure form
Request free assistance in
finding your personal information on your county web site from a
FindMyId.com Volunteer
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