The "Zero Accountability" Bush Administration Exposes Your Private Data
- From: Bushzilla <icadserve@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 21 Apr 2007 14:18:06 -0700
Govt Public Database Exposed SS Numbers of 63,000 People
Avatar02:07 PM, April 21st 2007
by Iuliu Blaga
An Illinois farmer discovered, by accident, that her name along with
her Social Security number was displayed in plain view on a U.S.
government website, FedSpending.org. She was only one of the about
63,000 people whose personal information was publicly displayed in
connection with financial assistance from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The 63,000 people were awarded funds through the Farm Service Agency
(FSA) or USDA Rural Development (RD).
"I was bored, and typed the name of my farm into Google to see what
was out there," said Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms
in Fairmount, Ill.
"I was stunned," she said of the unexpected results which turned up on
April 13. "The numbers were right there in plain view in this database
that anyone can access."
The data was apparently pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau and the
personal information breach was apparently going on for more than a
decade. The site itself was created by OMB Watch to allow monitoring
of federal spending. The 9-digit Social Security numbers were
displayed as they were part of a special 15-digit federal contract
identifier number.
"The bottom line is the government screwed up," said Gary Bass,
executive director of OMB Watch. "What's really important is that they
now try to rectify the problem. Thousands of research groups have
copies of this site."
"The data field at the heart of the security problem, the Federal
Award ID, is vitally important to investigators and researchers
tracking specific transactions, as it is the only means for
identifying a specific loan or grant," Bass said in the statement.
"For example, in order to file a Freedom of Information request about
a financial transaction, the public needs to provide the Federal Award
ID [which includes Social Security numbers]. Unfortunately, in
response to the problem, the Census Bureau has deleted the Federal
Award IDs for all FAADS records from its publicly downloadable files
without any public notice about these changes and has yet to replace
the information, eviscerating a key aspect of the data and lessening
its value."
"Conceivably this could affect 100,000 people," Bass said. "What is
harder [to determine] is how far this goes back. It could be decades.
It's just that this is the first time it has been easily accessible to
the public on the Web."
"It is truly astonishing that this has been happening," he said.
"We take full responsibility for this and offer no excuses for it,"
said Terri Teuber, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. "We absolutely do not think it was appropriate."
"There is no evidence that this information has been misused," Teuber
added. "However, due to the potential that this information was
downloaded prior to being removed, USDA will provide the additional
[credit] monitoring service."
The matter was kept under wraps for about a week because the site was
mirrored by at least a dozen other sites and the government also
sought to contact all the people who could be exposed to identity
theft. The Federal Privacy Act restricts the release of personal
information.
The NYT reminds that last year, hackers illegally accessed an
Agriculture Department database containing the names, Social Security
numbers and photos of current and former agency employees. Also, the
Department of Energy, the Navy, the Department of Veterans Affairs,
the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service
suffered various forms of data breaches last year in which personal
information was lost or stolen.
.
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