Fergie's Tech Blog

Ohio Police Accidently Post Personal Information

Bob Sulivan writes on The Red Tape Chronicles:

There's a new reason to be concerned about an encounter with local police, whether you're a victim or a suspect.

In Ohio last month, a police department accidentally published intimate details about every person officers encountered during a single day, including Social Security Numbers, driver's license numbers and more.

A stray click led the Bowling Green, Ohio, Police Department to publish the wrong report to the agency's police blotter Web site on Oct. 21, according to operations Lt. Brad Biller. Instead of posting a sanitized blotter, with all the personal information redacted, the agency published what is known as an "end of day report."

That report includes birth dates, SSNs, race descriptions, license numbers and more on each of the nearly 200 people the cops had contact with that day. It also included extended narratives about each incident, written by the responding police officer.

posted by Fergie @ 11/06/2006 10:37:00 AM