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Friday, April 20, 2007
OMB Watch Statement on Privacy Violation in Government Data
Earlier this afternoon, the New York Times published information about Social Security numbers being disclosed for many years by the government in unique identifiers for certain financial transactions (Read the NYTs story). This was discovered by a user of our FedSpending.org, an online service providing information about government spending that includes a government database that had the personally identifiable information.
We think the government's actions are inexcusable. It is impossible to fix the problem that affects thousands of people. But the government should take immediate action to provide an updated unique identifier that does not contain personally identifiable information.
We have agreed to redact the unique identifier on FedSpending.org if the federal government agrees to provide a plan within 30 days for correcting the problem. The unique identifier is an essential field for those interested in tracking individual financial transactions within government.
You can learn more about this breaking issue on FedSpending.org or on our homepage.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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