Personal Info Of Thousands Posted On City Site

INDIANAPOLIS -- The personal information of more than 3,000 people was posted on a government Web site for more than a week, city-county officials said Wednesday.

The file -- which contained the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of 3,300 people charged with minor offenses during 2006 and 2007 -- was inadvertently posted on the indygov.org Web site on Sept. 29 during a site upgrade, said Information Services Agency spokeswoman Barbara Thompson.

The mistake wasn't discovered until Oct. 9, when the file was immediately removed, Thompson said.

"This is an unfortunate example of human error; however, once we discovered that personal information was posted, ISA took aggressive action to correct the problem, to notify the affected individuals and to prevent this type of disclosure from happening again," said Kevin Ortell, interim chief information officer for ISA.

The agency began mailing letters to those affected this week, Thompson said. A hot line was also established at 317-327-5001 to provide more information.

"This problem won't go away overnight," said Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter. "Once that information has been made available, we don't know who has it."

More Information:

Identify Theft Resources: www.indianaconsumer.com