Government Technology - July 2008 - (Page 24)

Redaction Blackhole To redact SSNs, states use software to black out the section of the document where the number appears. Redaction software vendors typically guarantee 98 percent accuracy, but SSNs tend to crop up everywhere in documents, increasing the difficulty of redacting Shown here are sample documents indicating where a borrower’s personal information has been redacted. IMAGE COURTESY OF WWW.REDACT-IT.COM “It’s one of those things that I’m probably never going to be finished with,” Kassees said. “We’re asking the public to help us. Our database is public, and most folks look at their stuff more frequently than we look at it. We’re hoping they’ll spot it and help us remove it. We’ve gotten a couple of calls, but since 2005, I’ve probably fielded four or five calls.” Unfunded Mandates Governments also struggle to fund redaction initiatives. For instance, the Virginia Legislature authorized county clerks to redact SSNs in 2007, but didn’t offer counties funding. The Legislature set up a program allowing counties to use $4 of the revenue from each civil filing made in circuit courts for the redaction process. However, that won’t provide nearly enough revenue to cover the cost, according to Paul Ferguson, circuit court clerk of Arlington County, Va. He said the county agreed to make up the difference, but many smaller localities likely can’t afford that. “Since the Legislature mandated this, maybe they’ll come up with the extra funds as the deadline of 2010 approaches,” Ferguson said. them. For example, some lenders required borrowers to write their SSNs beneath their signatures. Other lenders organized the documents by SSN within their office filing systems. To do that, they wrote the SSNs on the upper right corners of the documents. Some documents have multiple pages, providing numerous spots for SSNs. Software can’t always predict all the additional places lenders might have written those numbers. The Florida Secretary of State’s Office was among the first agencies to redact SSNs from online UCC documents. Jay Kassees, director of the Division of Corporations in the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, was one of the public officials who had his SSN posted on Ostergren’s site. He said Ostergren still calls him to report SSNs remaining on the site. “She doesn’t tell you where it is because she figures you’ll just go in and remove that one and won’t look at the rest of the database,” Kassees said. “You’re stuck going through 5 million records to try to find it. It’s like a needle in a haystack.” Agencies can’t expect 100 percent accuracy with the current redaction technology, he said. JULY_08 to take the time to find SSNs on public documents. It takes less than a second [for a restaurant worker] to swipe your card through a second machine that grabs your information off the strip on the back,” Frey said. John Pescatore, vice president of Gartner, disputes that reasoning. He likens it to someone giving up hope of reducing carbon emissions and buying a Hummer. “[Online SSNs] are making identity theft easier, and the game is to make it harder. Nothing is going to make it impossible,” Pescatore said. Frey said he knew of no identity theft case involving SSNs in Fairfax’s online database. The county’s system can track the documents each user account accesses, if necessary. Frey argues those user accounts could help police if an incident occurred. Current redaction practices typically run the documents through a software-based automated process, and then each document is searched manually for additional SSNs. Maryland began its redaction process in March 2008 and expects to finish in five months. The project will cost $140,000, according to Robert Young, associate director of the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted against directly funding Frey’s “The state wants to do something, but they don’t pay for it. That’s quite common, at least in Virginia.” John Frey, circuit court clerk, Fairfax County, Va. Fairfax County, Va., Circuit Court Clerk John Frey will soon begrudgingly redact SSNs from the county’s Web site. Frey defends current state practices requiring users to subscribe to an account with a username, password and monthly fee to access court documents, like UCCs. The user must submit signed, notarized documents before getting an account. Fairfax’s monthly charge is $25, but amounts vary by county. Frey argues that process is sufficient to deter identity theft. Frey said redacting SSNs from public documents would do little to reduce identity theft. He insists easier ways of stealing identities already exist. “The odds are that you are more likely to have your identity stolen by using your credit card at lunch than by somebody who is going redaction project in Virginia. However, they allowed him to increase the charge users pay to access public documents and use the extra money to fund the project. “I’ve gone to the board, and they’re not really sympathetic toward giving me money for an unfunded state mandate,” Frey said. “The state wants to do something, but they don’t pay for it. That’s quite common, at least in Virginia.” He predicts it will cost the county more than $2 million to process its 38 million records. “In government, you hate to throw good money after something bad, but this country has spent millions of dollars on a local, state and national level for the pandemic bird flu that hasn’t come,” Frey said. “We spent the same amount on Y2K, and the end of the world that was going to happen on Y2K. 24 http://WWW.REDACT-IT.COM http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - July 2008

Government Technology - July 2008 Point of View The Last Mile Big Picture On the Scene Four Questions for ... Generation 2.0 at Work Dangerous Convenience Tainted Justice? Are You Ready? E-Discovery Basics Smart Docs Advanced Math Online Video Blues Spectrum Personal Computing Products signal:noise

Government Technology - July 2008

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