News 25 Investigation Finds Identity Theft Risk in Peoria County Clerk’s Office
News 25 Investigation Finds Identity Theft Risk in Peoria County Clerk’s Office
Government officials are often the first to warn people about the dangers of identity theft.
But there’s a government office in Peoria County that’s exposing people to the risk.
Since learning from News 25 of that exposure, local legislative leaders are promising they’ll take new legislation to Springfield next year.
If you have ever had a court proceeding or violated the law in Peoria County…even something as small as a curfew violation when you were a teen…you could become susceptible to identity theft.
Information regarding traffic and criminal offenses is public record…accessible on these computers in the courthouse.
But those records not only include information on your case—for countless people there’s your name, address, date of birth…and your social security number…personal information available for the public eye, and anyone can walk into the courthouse to access it.
“The information on the computer is the information we have on file for the people. We use the social security numbers in their file, so that goes on the computer. If you look in some of them, some of the social security numbers are not on them and that’s because we don’t have them in their file,” said Peoria County Circuit Clerk Robert Spears.
News 25 showed Spears the Electronic Access Policy for Circuit Court records which prohibits access to the “first five digits of social security numbers”…but Spears says that only applies to internet access.
Illinois State’s Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act “prohibits any person or entity from publicly posting or displaying an individual’s Social Security Number in any manner”…but that law does not apply to documents that are required to be open to the public.
“I think the law should change and it should not be necessary for governmental agencies, whether they’re prosecutors or clerks, to have that information available—social security numbers, addresses, and driver’s license numbers. Those things are really not that important to what the merits are of a particular court file or a public record. And I think that could lead to a lot of abuse,” said Peoria attorney Kevin Sullivan, who handles many criminal cases.
McLean County Circuit Clerk Sandra Parker agrees. McLean County switched over to an electronic system in 2003. The online version only gives names and dates of birth.
Parker says when they changed the system, they looked for ways to provide the least amount of personal information possible to still provide public access to court records.
Despite those efforts, for Peoria and McLean, anyone can obtain the personal information including socials security numbers, through paper records for court proceedings—including non–criminal cases like divorces.
“Until the Supreme Court or someone says we shouldn’t give access to it, we have to give access to it,” said Spears.
So can you have your social security number blocked from public records? Spears’ office told us they don’t know if that’s possible in Peoria County.
Kevin Sullivan says this is a loophole that needs to be fixed.
“I think there is a problem. I think the solution is you have to try to immediately try to rectify what’s there and try not to let future records contain this sensitive information…I think it starts with legislators by having a law that says public agencies do not have to or should not in the future, publicize this information,” said Sullivan.
State Representative Aaron Schock says this is a “horrible” oversight by the circuit clerk’s office.
Schock says he plans to introduce a bill in January to require Social Security Numbers to be removed from public records.
Senator Dave Koehler says he also plans to look into legislative changes.
Of the 102 counties in the state, circuit clerks do have a say in how their case management systems work.