Firearm permits leak list tops 25,000 (Berks County.) PA

[rev214]

Firearm permits leak list tops 25,000
By Dan Kelly
Reading Eagle

If the Berks sheriff gave you authorization to carry a weapon, your name and personal information were out there, the county solicitor says.

The Berks County solicitor's office has revised the account of last month's leak of county gun permit records on the Internet it says the entire list of more than 25,000 permit holders was released.

The information inadvertently exposed over the Labor Day weekend included not only permit holders' names, but also birth dates, Social Security numbers, psychiatric histories and other confidential information.

Sheriff Barry J. Jozwiak, whose office issues gun permits and is custodian of the list, initially said only a portion of the list had been exposed.

But Solicitor Alan S. Miller confirmed Thursday that the entire list could be accessed.

Jozwiak was unavailable Thursday.

Miller's revelation came as his office began sending letters to the gun permit holders notifying them of the leak.

State law requires agencies entrusted with confidential information to notify people if the data are compromised.

The information was exposed when a software technician hired to make the gun permit list more secure inadvertently left the information unsecured on a site he was hired to create for Jozwiak, officials said.

Postage alone will cost $9,700, officials said. They said they have not tallied legal fees for drafting the letter and cost of materials.

The costs will be paid by Canon Technology Solutions of Conshohocken, Montgomery County, the computer software firm that accidentally exposed the information, officials said.

The county paid Canon $19,000 to create a more secure gun permit list.

Jozwiak, working with the county information systems department, hired Canon to comply with a court order that settled a five-year-old class action suit filed by gun permit holders. The suit alleged Jozwiak was using the permit list as a political mailing list in violation of the Uniform Firearms Act.

The act requires that all information supplied by gun permit applicants remain confidential.

Miller said the county and Canon are not offering to pay permit holders to obtain a copy of their credit report to determine if they have been the victim of identity theft.

However, the county is complying with a second requirement of the state law for agencies entrusted with the information of at least 1,000 people: providing the victims' names to consumer reporting agencies.

Contact reporter Dan Kelly at 610-371-5040 or at [email protected]

 

[Soybomb]

As an IT professional I can't begin to fathom how someone could make such an enormous blunder as to make this information accessible from the internet. The magic of the lowest bidder perhaps.

 

[Henry Bowman]

The costs will be paid by Canon Technology Solutions of Conshohocken, Montgomery County, the computer software firm that accidentally exposed the information, officials said.

The county paid Canon $19,000 to create a more secure gun permit list.

The law of unintended consequences.

 

[Rezin]

I dunno if I beleive it was an accident. This list is the type of thing Lib publications like to publish. I can see this list being published in the future.....

 

[Thin Black Line]

Another reason official information should be on isolated servers.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Is there any special reason for including people's psychological histories among such information? I suppose, though, that if lists of permit holders are going to be put on the Internet the information ought to be as complete as possible. If they haven't done anything wrong they shouldn't be worried.

 

[Leonovicz]

Rev214: if you know anybody who may be affected by this event, please send them to AnnualCreditReport.com. The three credit-reporting companies will provide you with a free report once every 12 months.

Note: I believe there are some variations between the statistics reported, so you may want to do all three at once instead of spacing them at 4-month intervals. If you're concerned about the legitimacy of that site, look at this Federal Trade Commission document.

Robert: The psychological history is likely required for the same reason that written affidavits from non-relatives are: to provide some way of verifying a person's capacity to responsibly carry a concealed firearm. As for your last statement, I hope it was tongue-in-cheek. I can only think of a magnitudinal (not ideological) difference between an open CCW database and glass-walled houses.

 

[rev214]

thanks Leonovicz...

 

[Rumble]

Waitasec--how is there psychiatric history information among the permit data? Pennsylvania's permit process is, shall we say, information light: walk in, fill out a one-page form that looks rather like a 4473, and in some cases, walk out 20 minutes later and $25 lighter with a shiny permit.

Do they mean the questions about "have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective..."? They must.

 

[SJG26]

Good Point Rumble...............

If I recall-----there is some law/reg that specifically prohibits x-checking against Psych records or some such event.

By the way..............Berks County CCW holder here------yep-----I'm on that list and hitting all 3 credit agencies :banghead:

 

[The Cavalry]

Dude, be the first to call a slip 'n fall attorney and get a suit started against the Sheriff, the vendor, or both as he/she sees fit.

Donate the proceeds to charity if you want, but they need to pay and this is your only legal recourse.

 

[SJG26]

Cav said:

"Dude, be the first to call a slip 'n fall attorney and get a suit started against the Sheriff, the vendor, or both as he/she sees fit"


No thank you-------I am not the "sue-happy" type---I have not suffered any physical or emotional distress nor any finacial liabiliity (at least not yet).

Plus....a suit against the Sherriff simply gets paid back via my and others taxes--------to what end??

A terse letter and a vote for another candidate in the future will suffice!

 

[The Cavalry]

I understand and I'm similarly afflicted, been rear-ended by careless drivers three times in my lifetime and never called a lawyer.

However, have you seen any instances of gov't leaking its own personnel records, the VA thing this year notwithstanding? And note that no VA employee data was lost in that incident, just veterans' information.

They treat their own data much more carefully, don't they?

Gov't has created a needless restriction on the 2nd amendment in the form of carry permits, and they're treating your personal information they collect like so much trash.

As for the $$ to pay the lawsuit, they'll be covering it by postponing spiffy budget items also. Like that neat new Pop-Mode radar unit maybe.

 

[toivo]

how is there psychiatric history information among the permit data?

I'm just guessing here, but it could be that someone with a "questionable" history regarding mental health might be asked to provide some additional documentation before being given a permit.

 

[geekWithA.45]

The innards of the PA permitting process varies quite a bit from one county to the next.

In some counties, they look over the form, maybe call your two named references or send them a letter that says, "If you object, call now or forever hold your peace", run NICS on you, and call it a day.

Other counties, like Delaware, call your employer, call your references, run nics, look you up in every criminal and psych database they can get their hands on, call the LEO in your previous town, and THEN call it a day.

So, I'd sure not like notes on all that compiled in any one place, nevermind aired out to the public.

I'm just glad I don't live in Berks.

 

[BigFatKen]

in 40 years its different; online instead of hard copy

When I was going to UWM, I got on some student vote thing. They gave me a greenbar fanfold with every student. It was about an inch thick. I was to check off their name as each voted.

SSAN, birthday, address, everything was on that list of at least 35,000 students.

I kept it for a while then disposed of it. No one cared what you could do with that list.

Fast forward 40 years. I take a HTML course at Alabama comunity college. Besides that they want my 40 year old transcript to see if I'm a sex offender, the SSAN is thrown around like it is nothing. Same old, same old.

 

[TrybalRage]

Yeah, I'm unsure of any action to take so far.

IMO, the guy setting up the new system SHOULD have been using fake names & SS numbers, but what's done is done.

Suing hurts no one but the taxpayers.

I hear the good Sheriff is friendly towards NFA weapons...

I don't like having to use freecreditreport, I already used it 4 months ago so now I have to wait 8 months.

And I sure would like to know why this info was being put on a 'site' being created.

 

[alan]

From what I read on this fiasco, "sensitive data", Social Security Numbers and such ended up on the internet, in China. Seems as if there is a hellish amount of margin for IDENTITY THEFT in that.

Possibly I'm just nuts, I have been so accused, but let that pass. Perhaps I'm just old fashioned, but I find our decent to that of a DATABASE NATION or SURVELANCE SOCIETY troubling.