Your most personal private information, like Social Security numbers, could be available for anyone to see or steal. And it’s some metro Atlanta governments that are sharing it.
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Channel 2 Action News Investigates found that identity thieves don’t have to work hard to get it. No hacking into databases or stealing mail - just a couple of clicks on public websites.
In several counties, all it takes is a few keystrokes and a few seconds of searching to find private information on Georgia residents who had dealings with the court system, either criminal or civil.
Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray found information about Clinton Smith in a matter of minutes by simply looking for people named Smith in the Cherokee County Court online record system and showed him what was found.
“Your Social Security number, date of birth. Essentially everything I need to steal your identity,” Gray told him.
“That is everything you would need to steal my identity, 100 percent,” Smith said.
Kyle Schultz said he was concerned about what he saw after looking up his old speeding violations on the hall county web portal
“For my speeding ticket, I lost my identity,” he said.
His Social Security number, his date of birth, it was all there for anyone to find.
“I put freezes on my credit, which I it’s the only thing I can do,” Schultz said. “I signed up for credit monitoring, you know, out of my own pocket.”
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Channel 2 Action News Investigates has told you for years about the dangers of identity theft, covering stories of big data breaches from major companies.
But these documents are just sitting there, available to anyone online.
Hall County Clerk Mark Pettitt says each has sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers. It’s always been there in publicly available court records, just not easily accessible online
“We recognize the need for personal privacy, but at the end of the day, once a document is filed with our office, it becomes a public record by operation of law,” Pettitt said.
Under Georgia law, clerks are not allowed to redact sensitive information. They can only record documents.
“This is personal information. We recognize that,” Pettitt said. “We want to do the best we can within the law”
That’s why about 18 months ago, Hall County stopped putting certain records online, like arrest warrants and transcripts that have the most sensitive information.
“Sometimes things just don’t need to be online for people who wish to do harm to others,” Pettitt said.
The Cherokee County solicitor tells me sensitive documents are now redacted when filed there. A 2023 arrest warrant he sent as an example shows the Social Security number is hidden.
But older documents, like from Smith’s arrest in 2000, live on unredacted.
“I haven’t been in trouble in almost 20 years,” he said.
His personal private information remains online and accessible to anyone.
“That’s all you need to open any sort of account you would like to,” he said.
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