6/10/98:

Even though Indiana has a progessive law protecting against the governmental use of Social Security Numbers (I will post the Statute and Commentary shortly), the attitude of Indiana University and what I found today, I wonder if there is much awareness of the law:

Indiana Sex Offend Registry Go here and do a search, I searched on Indianapolis and up popped a large list of names and SSNs.

Here is my comments:

7/6/97 UPDATE! State University of New York puts Student names/SSNs on the World Wide Web!

University SSNs on the web. Hopefully, this will become a comphrensive list of disregard for privacy by Universities.

Govt Web sites with SSNs

First, look in the Congressional Record for the United States Senate. They appear to have changed to just the last four digits of Military Officer's SSNs. But, back issues will show the full numbers.

Check out the Securities and Exchange Commissions Edgar database. See what I found here.

Don't forget the search engines. For example, www.infoseek.com. I searched for "ssn" and up came a list of 2760 Indiana University Faculty SSNs. You may find others.

In Dupage County, Illinois, the Courthouse was chock full of them on traffic tickets!

In United States District Court in Chicago, there were a fair number in the Magistrate's files. Look for files like 97-M-101. The seemed to appear in papers filed when the government was trying to track down desserters. (Just look through the files one by one. You'll be amazed at some of the stuff "hidding" in those unindexed Magistrate files.)

FDLE. Check out the page on "sexual predators". Not only do you get the names, SSNs, you get the address, date of birth, description and picture! Update! Congradulations! Another of your references has pulled SSNs. THe Florida page on "sexual predators" gives some 8 digit ID #, instead of a 9 digit SSN. Assuming that they previously put out SSN's (i.e. someone didn't mistake these 8 digit #s for SSNs), this is a change, that may well have resulted from your investigatory work. The page now makes reference to: "Under Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, the Public Records Law, any of the public records of the Department of Law Enforcement are available for review upon request, subject to statutorily-authorized editing of exempt or confidential information." Apparently, after putting the SSN's on the internet, someone changed their minds.

More SSN's... this time from the Pennsylavania State Police. New 6/1/97! Click here to see more names/ssn's on the web from a government agency!

The BATF. The list goes on.

The U.S. Marshal's Service

Campbell, County, Virginia

Montgomery County Sheriff's Department

Grove City, Ohio

Palm Beach Sheriff's Dept

The State of Mississippi!

"World's Most Wanted Bail Jumpers" Some of these have SSNs listed.

Duke University List of SSNs. No names attached.

Some Body's Resume Geez! Another one! -- Does it end? -- Interesting, a lot of the resumes show SSNs in the infoseek listing, yet have them deleted in the web page! -- Resume w/ssn -- Resume w/ssn* -- Resume w/ssn -- Resume w/ssn -- Resume w/ssn -- resume w/SSN -- resume w/SSN -- resume w/SSN -- resume w/SSN

* I do not appreciate your publishing a link to my resume simply because
I had a social security number there.  I feel violated by your intent.
I don't even know you and you've misused information I've published.

I'm upset by this and am considering my options.

Howard Cohen
hoco@timefold.com

For those who object to my putting links to Resumes' with SSNs: What about doing it the "Microsoft Way"? Rather than a link to a resume... a link to Infoseek. Click here for an Infoseek listing of Resumes' with SSNs! The advantage, the links are likely to be updated more frequently than mine. The disadvantage, you have to sort through those who were on ships designated by the term SSN.

Hi,

We've corresponded before. I know of a source of publically disclosed SSNs by government. This was in Minnesota, but may be the same in many states-

It occurs when an individual makes a worker's compensation claim. When it is denied by at first level by an insurer, for example, the claimant may then move it to a hearing (before an administrative law judge, I presume). THE FORM for this, resembles an initial court complaint form, with skeletal information to be put in the blanks. At the top of the form is a place for the SSN. That is how they identify worker compensation cases! After filing, this becomes public record I believe.(!)

My phone request to be exempted from this didn't get much response-just a quote of the law. (But even the quote of the law they gave me didn't correspond to the law that was stated in the up to date printed text-which did not require SSNs. It did correspond to the version in the Lexis database-puzzling.) No response regarding privacy act or religion objections.

*****************

Another source of SSN release, could possibly at agencies who take discrimination complaints about employment, housing, public accommodations, etc.-city, state, or federal. On their initial questionaire forms, they request your SSN without a privacy act notice. After the case is closed, the file becomes public. It may or may not still contain the questionaire; they may or may not let you look at the questionaire. It may also contain exhibits, etc from the other party-such as applications, or some kind of employee records.

This may be true also for public records of COURT CASES that deal with any issue involving someone's records that contain SSNs-tax cases, employment cases, government benefits cases!

I have another source of SSNs! In the State of New Jersey (and others I am sure) a company acting as a "Sole Proprietorship" is issued a "tax number" that is the owners' SSN and a letter or number following it! (ie: xxx-xxx-xxx-A)!

Therefore, a plumbers' SSN is known to each and every one of his suppliers! The records are probably also available to John Q. Public!

I wonder how long it would take an average college student to get a person's SSN? Perhaps that would be a good condition precedent for granting a $1,000 scholarship to a student! Perhaps the person we would like to look up is the head of SSA.