Pendulum swinging toward privacy

The New York Times this morning is reporting on a trend that is gathering steam among county and state officials who are increasingly eager to remove Social Security information from public records on the Internet.

This is clearly a victory for personal privacy and offers a measure off added protection against identity theft.

It's also just as clearly an opportunity for the law of unintended consequences to rear its mischievous head.

From the Times:

One by one, states and counties have started removing images of documents that contain Social Security numbers, or they are blocking out the numbers. Four states, including New York, have removed links to images of public documents containing Social Security numbers.

Snohomish County, Wash., for example, said Wednesday that 61 types of documents, including tax liens and marriage certificates, would be blocked. (The documents are supposed to remain public at courthouses or state offices.)

On Wednesday, the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, issued a legal opinion that county clerks could be committing a crime by revealing Social Security numbers on the Internet.

While the last point seems extreme, the good here is obvious and significant: It's difficult to justify placing private individuals at a significantly increased risk of identity theft simply because they buy property, get married or get divorced.

However, there's also a clear risk of losing the baby with the bathwater. Redacting social security numbers and other sensitive personal information from public records has proven difficult, time-consuming and costly. On the other hand, removing public records in bulk from the Internet will be relatively easy, quick and cheap.

Given those options, which way do you think cash-strapped municipalities, counties and states will go? How much critical, perfectly safe and justifiable online public information will be sacrificed in the name of privacy protection?

Moreover, how long do you think it will take for less-well-intentioned public officials to use the guise of privacy protection to justify their own desires to keep the public in the dark?

This is a pendulum that needs to be monitored carefully.

Also, I figured this was as good a time as any to determine if my own Social Security number is out there for the clicking. When writing about a service called Stolen ID Search from TrustedID last month (also featured in the Times story), I made special note of the fact that I didn't dare submit my own personal information for checking by the service, a reservation which prompted the company's CEO to offer me reassurance.

Well, this morning I overcame my fear and entered my Social Security number into the Stolen ID search field, and out of what the company contends are 2,366,867 compromised numbers, mine is nowhere to be found.

Of course, that could change tomorrow given that I've been married twice, divorced once, bought three homes and sold two.

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