State Cannot Force Removal of SSNs From Privacy Advocate's Site

jvatcw brings us a story about Betty Ostergren, who operates a website dedicated to pointing out the social security numbers visible in public records. The purpose of the site is to raise awareness of privacy concerns regarding the personal information shared in Virginia's governmental websites. Legislation was introduced in Virginia to combat Ostergren's website, but last Friday a judge shot down the attempt to censor her, writing, "It is difficult to imagine a more archetypal instance of the press informing the public of government operations through government records than Ostergren's posting of public records to demonstrate the lack of care being taken by government to protect the private information of individuals."

Comments

Re:How about something better?

[MarkvW]

I wonder whether "identity theft" is not just an utterly brilliant public relations tactic used by the credit card companies to deflect responsibility away from themselves.

In "identity theft" the thief is the bad guy and the credit card company's responsibility is ignored.

Re:Private information??

[k2enemy]

Isn't that the bigger problem? Instead of spending more and more money to hide this number (or blame companies who lose such data), intelligent people should be asking why this number should be private.

Exactly. I wish the govt would just announce that on January 1, 2009 they will put up a website that publicly reveals everyone's SSN. Banks and other institutions have until then to work out some other means of authentication.

Re:How about something better?

[Archangel Michael]

IF I don't use credit, then a "black mark" is meaningless.

And, with all those "black marks" on my credit, then anyone accepting my SS# and credit history, gets what they deserve.

But you raise an interesting point, though it is obscured. If I don't use credit, and someone issues credit in my name to someone other than me, how would I prove it? How would I even know it?

In that case, the credit companies have broken system (yeah, we all know it too). In this case, I'd sue everyone involved ruining my reputation.

I'm wondering why nobody has gone after them for slander or libel (which ever applies), in a civil tort?

Re:Assume

[Archangel Michael]

You assume too much.

I own my cars, paid cash for each of them. I own my house, never had a loan on it.

Just because 99.99999% of the population does it one way, doesn't mean everyone does.

I'll tell you the next hardest thing to do without credit (cards) is rent a car. It can be done, but not easily.

And no, I don't own a tin foil hat.

Plan for a post-SSN America

[StreetStealth]

I don't think that's quite the way to go about it, but I think it would be good to start by outlawing (with penalties this time) its use for anything other than, you know, Social Security.

But we're just getting started here. Once the SSN has returned to the single use for which it was created, we need a vastly more secure system to replace it. Not a national ID number, but a transparent, authenticated system of personal financial metadata kept in a vault maintained by a consortium of Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, under tight regulation by the feds.

Users would always be able to securely check the entirety of their personal data to ensure its correctness, would have a federally-mandated path of action to contest errors, and would have a simple method of offering disposable keys to financial institutions to verify their credit history.

The judge is smart... and dumb

[superdave80]

OK, so he properly ruled that she can list records that are already publicly available. Good for him. Then I read this amazing piece of idiocy:

He noted that the ruling may have been "very different" if Ostergren only listed Social Security numbers copied from records rather than the records themselves.

What?!?!? It's OK to show the whole record, but not part of the record? What the hell is the difference? The record already has the SSN in it.

Mod my comment down!

[philspear]

Er, I'd really like to retract this post. It's not insightful, it's me not being awake and not RTFA. So this will probably be a /. first, but I would request someone to mod my own post (the one above) "overrated." She's not doing this to private citizens, the SSNs are already online, this doesn't seem like a bid for attention now that I have the facts straight.

I'm not sure why you can't delete your own post, but there should at least be a "mod my own comment down to '-1: redacted'" option.

Just publish them all already

[Antibozo]

It's high time the government simply published all SSNs. We are constantly forced to hand our SSNs over to banks, employers, phone companies, doctors, insurers, etc, and we have no way of knowing how many people have access to them. SSN is just an account number, but it's being used both as a unique identifier for individuals and as an authenticator, mostly because financial institutions are too lazy to develop their own authentication system. What's more, substantial parts of SSN are predictable with decent confidence given knowledge of a person's approximate place and time of birth. Meanwhile, SSN is next to impossible to change, so once it's compromised you're permanently screwed. It should be obvious that using SSN as an authenticator of any kind is pathologically stupid. It lacks every property good authenticators should have.

SSNs are not secret. Let's stop pretending that they are.

Re:How about something better?

[berashith]

what about negligence. If you ask for something to be removed that gets replaced in an automated fashion the next month, then there is a proveable disregard for accuracy. It isnt libel, but taking the cheap and easy way can provide known incorrect information.

Re:How about something better?

[cayenne8]

While I applaud not living beyond your means, not buying things before you can afford them (and this works I think on 99% of all things)....I'm wondering how you do own a house, and take care of say and emergency without at least some form of credit.

I was in horrible credit card debt hell post-Katrina. But, I got good settlements on my lost car and other things...and along with some other good fortune that came out of all that mess...I"m virtually debt free. All cards paid off, only a car and motorcycle note right now. I never intend to go into hard debt again. For 99% of all purchases I do, I pay cash.

But, I do have credit cards. I keep them mostly for emergencies, and for buying gas at places like Sam's that don't take cash at the pumps. What I do charge, I pay off in full each month, so that is basically like using cash.

I'm actually wanting to trade a card or so in for ones that earn cash back or airline mileage...which actually pay you to use them.

I'm curious how you go totally without credit. I have mine, and use it sparingly, and responsibly...I'm not sure I could go completely off them. I'd always want one around, just for an emergency....say like the coming hurricane. Last time for Katrina, I rode out with friends. After a period, I had to rent a car, and that is virtually impossible to do these days w/o a credit card.

I'd be interested in hearing the details of how you go completely without them....

Thanks...