LifeLock

Steven K. Gilmore was arrested last week after arranging to sell 1,600 sets of names, birth dates and Social Security numbers to an undercover agent. He had already sold 35 sets of similar information to the agent between October 2008 and March 2009.

Gilmore was charging only $2,800 for the records of all 1,600 people, or $1.75 apiece.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations undercover operative involved in the case claimed Gilmore had the same information of an additional 1,500 people he was willing to sell.

Gilmore worked for Policy Studies, a contractor hired by the Tennessee Department of Human Services to provide child support services, until January 8 of this year. A federal criminal complaint alleges Gilmore used his position to obtain the personal information.

The TBI and the U.S. Secret Service are still investigating, but believe the information was sold only to government agents, and that all the information Gilmore stole has been recovered.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse lists nine reported data breaches involving state and local human services departments since July 2006.

The largest of these occurred November 2006, when a desktop computer was stolen from the office of a Colorado Department of Human Services subcontractor, and is believed to have affected as many as 1.4 million people. Affiliated Computer Services was contracted to process child support payments for the state agency.