Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon sues PublicData.com to stop site from publishing Missourians Social Security Numbers

Nixon sues Publicdata.com to stop site from providing unfettered access to Missourians' personal information Feb 20th Press Release Kansas City, Mo. — Attorney General Jay Nixon wants to shut down a Web site that allows anyone with a credit card to purchase detailed personal information about Missouri consumers – including Social Security numbers – and have its operator fined a hefty sum for each violation of state consumer protection laws. Nixon today filed a lawsuit in Jackson County Circuit Court against the operator of the Web site, a Texas company called The Source for Public Data, which does business as PublicData.com. Nixon says the Web site recklessly provides any user with a credit card with complete access to such personal information as Social Security numbers, addresses, birthdays and physical descriptions of consumers for a cost of $9.95. "This Web site is a gold mine for identity thieves, and needs to be shut down as soon as possible to protect the privacy of Missourians," Nixon said. "My office has already seen proof of how this site can be used to destroy the credit of innocent consumers in at least one prominent identity theft case." The Attorney General's Office has been involved in an ongoing criminal case in Florida in which a defendant will soon plead guilty to multiple counts of identity theft and larceny following a joint investigation by Nixon's office, the Miami Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspector, and the U.S. Secret Service. The defendant confessed to investigators that she obtained Missourians' Social Security numbers by accessing www.publicdata.com and entering numbers at random until they got "hits" matching the number entered with a real Missourian whose credit could be ruined. When arrested, the defendant had pages containing the name, address, birthday, social security number, height, and eye color of numerous Missourians, and confessed she got the information from www.publicdata.com. The defendant used the information to obtain nearly $220,000 in fraudulent charges under her victims' names, Nixon said. Nixon says that both the U.S. Congress and Missouri General Assembly have passed measures to protect the driving records and personal information of Missourians. The Federal Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), passed in 1994, and its state counterparts allow individuals and businesses to obtain information contained in an individual's driving record, but only for certain uses specified in law. Anyone who provides this information to third parties is obligated under federal law to ensure that the third party's use of the information is for a legitimate purpose allowed under the law. Publicdata.com only requires users to indicate what use they are obtaining the information for. Nixon said the site does not provide the level of assurance required under the law that this information will be used for that purpose. In fact, the Web site itself acknowledges that criminals use the site. "Identity theft is obviously not a legitimate use of this information, and we will not allow the physical and financial security of Missourians to be compromised by Web sites such as publicdata.com," Nixon said. Today's lawsuit asks the court to issue an immediate temporary restraining order and eventually, a permanent injunction, to shut down the defendant's Web site. Nixon is also requesting that the court order the defendant to pay civil penalties and all costs of investigating and prosecuting the case. -- http://www.bransonedge.com http://www.bransonmissouri.blogspot.com