The following actually happened September 16, 2008. And, because other knuckle-headed screw-ups just like this one happen every day.
First, imagine you’re among the millions of unemployed Americans, and among the 5.8% of New York residents who are unemployed.
Now, picture yourself scanning the first of the two-page unemployment insurance benefits application from Albany. There it is, your name and Social Security number on the first page. Now turn to page 2… and there’s someone else’s name and Social Security number on the second page.
This means, of course, that somewhere out there your name and Social Security number is on the second page of someone else’s application.
Are you scared yet? Are you mad? It gets better.
Does the NY Department of Labor immediately enroll you in a free credit protection program? No. Instead they advise you to contact the credit reporting agencies yourself to make sure the screw up hasn’t resulted in identity theft.
But that doesn’t mean the NY Department of Labor isn’t actively working to protect your identity and credit. No sir. They promptly sent out another letter informing you (and all of the 420 others involved in the department’s self-inflicted data breach) of the “criminal consequences for the use or disclosure of information inadvertently disclosed to them.”
What a relief that must be to you. Now you can rest assured that the other unemployed guy who has your personal information isn’t going to take advantage of the opportunity to ease his own financial straits.,, not now that he knows that would be wrong and have criminal consequences if he gets caught.
What’s that you say? You’re not sure the Labor Department has done enough to protect you? C’mon, you can trust Karen Bever, the Department’s security information officer, when she says, “We believe that this will be a strong deterrent to misuse.”
Well, thanks for that assurance, Ms. Bever.
And in case you’re concerned that this kind of blatantly irresponsible mishandling of personal information might happen again, take heart: The Labor Department is thinking very seriously about shortening the form to a single page.
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