Social Security numbers exposed on Iowa land-records Web site

could be accessed through the site, according to the Register.

The newspaper quoted Jensen as acknowledging that "thousands" of records with Social Security numbers were listed on the Web site. She said many of the counties that feed information to the site don't have workers available to redact the older documents. Jensen did add, though, that individuals can ask their county recorders or the ICRA to have their Social Security numbers redacted.

In an interview with Computerworld Friday, Jensen reiterated that businesses in Iowa need to have online access to the land records. "We have telephone calls coming in from business people who want this site up and running," she said. "They obviously don't want to send runners out to 99 courthouses" to obtain copies of documents.

Jensen voiced hope that state legislators would be willing to foot the bill for redacting Social Security numbers from documents, since it was "their legislative mandate" that resulted in the records becoming available online in the first place. She added that well before the land records site went live, county officials were concerned about the potential privacy issues and were talking about the need to redact Social Security numbers. In fact, the concerns expressed by county recorders contributed to the approval of the law prohibiting the numbers from being listed in public records, Jensen claimed.

The controversy in Iowa is similar to ones that have cropped up in other states, such as Florida and Texas, over online access to property, tax, mortgage and court documents containing Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal data.

Such records have long been available for public inspection at county offices, but posting them online has made it relatively easy for anyone with an Internet connection to access them. As in Iowa, most of the Social Security numbers that find their way online are typically included in older documents because of recently enacted laws that forbid the numbers from being listed in new records. But with some counties posting millions upon millions of public records, the number of documents containing sensitive information can easily run into the hundreds of thousands per site.

Over the past few years, privacy advocates have been sounding the alarm about the fraud and identity theft issues raised by the accessibility of Social Security numbers. In response, states such as California and Florida have enacted laws that require counties to redact personal data from documents before making them available online. Others county governments have begun requiring users to register or to pay fees for online access to public records.

But many county governments continue to provide relatively unfettered access to documents containing sensitive information — in some cases, without facing any legal ramifications.

For example, Texas last year passed a law that exempts county clerks from any criminal or civil liabilities for publicly posting documents containing Social Security numbers. The state legislature acted after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled in February 2007 that disclosing Social Security numbers in public documents was a violation of both state and federal privacy laws and was a criminal offense punishable by jail time and fines.