Identity Theft Revisited

A blog entry last week discussed identity theft and the need to do something about it. Well, as the old saying goes, “be careful what you wish for because it might come true.” Today I came in contact with a concerned citizen from another part of the state who had some very tangible and disturbing observations about registry of deeds records. This person had stumbled upon several land records that contained the social security numbers of the individuals involved. He pointed out to me the broader vulnerability of our system to wrong doers intent on stealing personal information. (Since further details would increase the odds of this actually happening, I’ll omit them). Here’s our current policy regarding social security numbers. We will not record a document that contains a social security number (except for state and federal tax liens which warrant their own discussion, probably tomorrow). We give the customer the option of crossing out the social security number or of not recording the document. We haven’t had a problem with this yet. Unfortunately, that hasn’t always been the registry’s policy, so there are documents on record that contain social security numbers. When someone brings such a document to our attention, we have altered the document image to obscure the social security number. This, of course, is contrary to a record custodian’s every instinct – altering an existing record is very serious business. But I’ve concluded that the risk of serious harm posed by publishing a social security number on the Internet outweighs the problems that might arise by this limited alteration. That’s enough for today. Check back tomorrow for part two of this discussion.