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Identity theft becomes issue in statewide race
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
June 02, 2006
By Reginald Fields
A spate of high-profile security lapses by key state and federal entities is pushing identity theft to the fore in the Ohio secretary of state's race. One candidate is pushing her plan for addressing the consumer-targeted crime, while the other is touting his experience in dealing with the problem in his current job. The issue is prime political fodder for the campaign, with two recent embarrassing breaches in the office of Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell that exposed residents' Social Security numbers to the public. While talking with a group of Dayton teachers recently, Democrat Jennifer Brunner said an off-topic question came up that turned the discussion more serious: What are you going to do about identity theft? "As I have campaigned around the state, and I've been to over 70 counties, people are actually bringing this up to me because they are so concerned about it," said Brunner, who this week announced a five- point plan addressing identity theft that she would implement if elected to succeed Blackwell. Republican Greg Hartmann is the Hamilton County clerk of courts. He said Brunner is just getting up to speed on what he has already seen as a local record keeper. "We have already addressed the issue of identity theft and eliminated about 1 million documents from public access," said Hartmann, adding that he could carry those skills in protecting sensitive information into the statewide office. Brunner points out, however, that Hartmann's office Web site early last year was hit by thieves who stole Social Security numbers. Hartmann said he has since addressed that problem and that the culprits have been caught and federally prosecuted. Ohio ranked 29th in the country last year for the number of identity theft reports per 100,000 people, according to the Federal Trade Commission. And there is reason for increased concern. Over the past year there have been serious security lapses not only at the secretary of state's office, but by at least four state universities - including Cleveland State - and several county agencies. All have in some form exposed personal information on hundreds of thousands of Ohioans. Miami University on Wednes- day reported its second privacy breach in 10 months. And last week the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said a laptop containing data such as Social Security numbers and birth dates for more than 26.5 million American veterans was missing. Under Brunner's plan, the secretary would not outsource to private companies work involving reviewing and inputting to a state database business filings that might contain personal details, as the current secretary does. She proposes one uniform set of rules for the 88 county boards of elections, training elections officials on handling voters' personal information, and launching education awareness campaigns on identity theft. The plan also includes helping victims recover more quickly from their illegally marred credit by setting up a registry of people who have received a court-issued "declaration of innocence." This would help victims clear their names, she said. "When you listen to the victims and hassles they had to go through and the time that it took to overcome this, it's incredible," said Brunner, a former Franklin County judge and attorney in the secretary's office. Hartmann said he plans to focus on the issue on the campaign trail and will have more to say on it later. The secretary of state is the state's chief elections officer but also takes in a number of important business filings. Meanwhile, Blackwell, the GOP nominee for governor, is still tightening office procedures after the two recent breaches. Most recently, under public information requests, the secretary's office sent out 20 identical computer discs containing voter information data on Ohioans dating to 2002. Some Social Security numbers were included. Blackwell has asked for all 20 discs to be returned and for the recipients to sign affidavits swearing they did not copy the personal information, said James Lee, the office's spokesman. The secretary cannot force anyone to return the disc or sign the affidavit. But so far 19 discs have been returned, Lee said. However, few, if any, affidavits have been signed. Lee won't say how many the office has received. Ohio has more than 7 million registered voters, but it is still unclear how many of them had private information revealed by the erroneous release. And in March, Blackwell settled a lawsuit against his office for exposing Social Security numbers on financial filings retrievable from the secretary's Web site. Blackwell promised to remove the private information from public access. The legislature assisted by passing a bill legally allowing the numbers to be redacted from the filings. Those files should be updated by the end of June, Lee said.
