This week, the social media world has been alight with warning about a “genealogy” site that makes just about anyone’s information — addresses (current and former), age, family members, possible associates — available for free to any user. While this has caused a minor uproar, with concerned folks telling each other how to opt out of having their data shared by this site, this sort of data-aggregating service isn’t exactly anything new — and while what this site is doing might seem remarkably creepy, it is, in fact, completely legal. [More]
public records
Is Your Social Security Number A Public Record? Depends Where You Live
By 2.12.15
A pile of sensitive personal data from Florida residents is now on the loose online. But it wasn’t leaked from a hack or a breach. It was from a completely legitimate public records dump by the state’s former governor. [More]
When Does The First Amendment Prevent The Release Of Public Records? When It Involves Strippers
By 11.7.14
When two rights conflict, which one is given priority? This was the question recently put before a federal court in Washington state, where a group of strippers were trying to prevent their real names and other personal information from being shared publicly even though state law seems to require that their identities be released upon request. [More]
Nomadic And Crashing With Friends? No Computer Parts For You
By 5.9.12
Joshua is a functioning adult with plenty of money to spend at TigerDirect, but they don’t want to sell computer parts to him. That’s because he leads sort of a nomadic existence. The billing address for his cards doesn’t match his address history in the various “public records” databases. He could fix all this by sending in his photo ID, a utility bill, anything that proves that he is where he says he lives. But he’s crashing with friends, and that doesn’t get your name on the power bill. [More]
Bank Of America Quizzes Me About Sister's Real Estate Holdings For Account Verification
By 8.25.10
Seth tells Consumerist that when he tried to open an additional savings account with Bank of America, recently, the überbank put up some privacy roadblocks that he found intrusive and problematic. He’s already a customer, but the bank insisted on verifying his identity when he applied for a new savings account online. One of the questions was about his sister’s financial transactions, not his, which made him uncomfortable. [More]
Erroneous Public Records Data, Or: Who The Heck Is This Hipolito Guy?
By 5.29.09
Kathy has an unusual problem. She thinks that there might be a problem with some of her public records and/or her credit report, but she isn’t sure how to find out how it got there, let alone remove it. See, there’s a man named Hipolito, with the same relatively common last name as Kathy, who keeps popping up in public records questions used to verify her identity. She has no idea who this man is, and neither does anyone in her family.
