Today is not a good day to be a Texan. Sure, they’ve got good steak, the Rangers, oil and sharp-looking cowboy hats – but now, some 3.5 million Texans are also facing public exposure of their private records. The information includes citizens’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and possibly dates of birth and drivers licence numbers.
State officials apologised today, explaining that the computer folders containing these personal records were mistakenly placed on a public state computer server – accessible to anyone who cared to check – for about an entire year. But fear not, Texans, because the information has been sealed off from public access since the breach was discovered.
State Comptroller Susan Combs has firmly stated this will not happen again, and I’m optimistic that’s true – at the very least, hopefully, office staffers won’t have such slippery click fingers when handling innocent citizens’ personal files next time. [Reuters]