Web site area showing personal data has been blocked

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 17, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Officials from the secretary of state's office blocked access to scanned images of finance documents on their Web site Tuesday after learning they had failed to delete all Social Security numbers from them the day before.

This is the second such action taken by the office in two years.

On Monday, the state agency removed about 90,000 images of documents known as Uniform Commercial Code financing statements from the business section of the Web site.

Action was taken because scores of documents, used to inform the government of bank and company loans or financing aid, contained Social Security numbers and were accessible to the public for almost 10 months. These documents had been filed with the state between June 2001 and December 2002.

But Monday evening and Tuesday morning, a Rocky Mountain News reporter and Virginia privacy activist Betty "BJ" Ostergren found numerous Social Security numbers still on the Web site and notified officials.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman's spokesman, Richard Coolidge, said the office didn't remove all scanned documents from the Web site Monday because workers believed they had fixed the problem.

"We need to go back and look into other ways to address removing personal information from the site," Coolidge said Tuesday evening.

He said he does not know when the documents will be made available on the site.

Ostergren blasted Coffman and his office for not properly fixing the site. She said she first reported the exposed Social Security numbers to Coffman in 2007.

In late March 2007, Coffman removed documents from the same part of the site. His office hired a company to remove 500,000 Social Security numbers, and the office posted the documents again last November.

Last week, Ostergren said she found at least 3,000 documents with Social Security numbers.

The documents "should never have gone back online last year," she said. "It's a shame that the good people of Colorado have to put up with such ineptitude."

Colorado residents whose Social Security numbers were exposed said they wanted the site taken down.

County clerks have also been struggling with protecting sensitive personal information on public documents. Jefferson and Montrose counties recently removed access to property records on their Web sites because of this issue.

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361

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