FCPC ALERT #2003-6

FAIRFAX COUNTY PRIVACY COUNCIL

Originally Published on 2 November 2003

Greetings! This message is intended for members of the Fairfax County Privacy Council, and anyone else who might be interested in advancing privacy in Virginia.  Maximum dissemination of this message is encouraged!

Privacy Notice: All communication from the Fairfax Privacy Council is sent using blind carbon copy ("BCC") format for your security and privacy.

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ALERT ITEM SUMMARY:
***Devolites Committee Fiddles while County Clerks Burn Your Family's Sensitive Personal onto the Internet***
***Virginia Judge Connects Public Records Problem to ID Theft and Privacy Invasion ***
***Rehnquist Disagrees with Devolites Committee - Sensitive Personal Information SHOULD be Redacted from Digitized Public Records***
***County Police Chief Manger:  "The Fastest Growing Crime in Fairfax County is ID Theft"***
***Copying VA Driver's Licenses is Illegal***
***Canada Bans Passport Smiles to Appease UN Agency***
***Freedom Foundation Urges Employer Funded MSAs ***
***Privacy Reference Link of Interest:  "Privacy Activism"***
***Privacy Quote***

1.  Devolites Committee Fiddles while County Clerks Burn Your Family's Sensitive Personal onto the Internet:  Delegate Jeannemarie A. Devolites (R-Fairfax) sponsored a bill in the General Assembly last year to allow county clerks to establish paid subscriptions for remote-access Internet sites holding public records even though she openly has stated that public records held by courthouses and other Commonwealth agencies hold "…an awful lot of personal information that could be used for nefarious purposes" (see "Courts struggle with public access, privacy, The Virginia-Pilot, by Ellyde Roko, 28 October 2003, at http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=61570&ran=15463).   Devolites then worked last year gut the passage of an Internet Public Record Privacy bill known as HB2426 that would have prohibited the posting of sensitive information (such as Social Security Numbers, Dates of Birth, and financial account numbers commonly found in public records) onto the Internet.  The Devolites led subcommittee charged by the General Assembly to study public record privacy has been slow rolling the issue, meeting rarely, apparently hoping to study the problem to death.  Meanwhile, Devolites has focused her energy on running for State Senate in Vienna as a stepping stone toward running for Lieutenant Governor (see Fairfax Delegate's Aspirations Are the Talk of Both Va. Parties: Experience, Personal Ambition Issues in 35th District," The Washington Post, by David Cho, 24 October 2003, page B01, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8854-2003Oct23.html, and also "GOP Cash Builds Up 'Davis Machine:  Congressman Routes Millions To Va. Allies, The Washington Post, by David Cho and Jo Becker, 30 October 2003, page A01, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38006-2003Oct29.html).  Unfortunately, in Fairfax County alone, pursuant to Delegate Devolite's new law, County Clerk John T. Frey's employees are burning thousands of public records with sensitive personal information every week onto digitized files to be published world wide on a "PAY PER VIEW" basis without any redaction of SSNs and other sensitive information.  Sharon Dawes, director of the Center for Technology in Government at the State University of New York at Albany notes that across the United States that "there is a basic assumption many citizens have about the personal data their state or local government holds: that officials will use it appropriately. Now that much of that information is digitized, they expect that their government won't share it, won't put it on public Web sites, will keep it in secure systems and that people will be trained in how to handle information of a confidential nature responsibly" (see "eGOVERNING Special Report:  Trust Busters -  Nothing can undermine the growth of online government faster than a digital database that leaks information," Governing, September 2003 at http://www.opengovva.org/privacy/governing.html).    Our View:  Thanks to legislators like Jeannemarie A. Devolites, that's exactly what is NOT happening in Virginia today.

2.  Virginia Judge Connects Public Records Problem to ID Theft and Privacy Invasion:   Alexandria Judge Stephen S. Mitchell and Richmond attorney Dion W. Hayes warn that "electronic access [to public records] may facilitate identity theft.  Bankruptcy files are public records and, except where a file or document within a file has been sealed, are freely available for public inspection and copying.  Nevertheless, traditional court files enjoy a certain level of what the Supreme Court has aptly termed "practical obscurity." A party seeking to review a paper file must know that the case is pending, must take time and travel to the clerk's office and so on. With electronic access, whatever obscurity existed in the parperbased world is effectively eliminated" (see "Perspectives on the Brave New World of Electronic Case Filing," The Virginia Lawyer, by the Honorable Stephen S. Mitchell and Dion W. Hayes, October 2003, at http://www.vsb.org/publications/valawyer/oct03/mitchell_hayes.pdf).

3.  Rehnquist Disagrees with Devolites Committee - Sensitive Personal Information SHOULD be Redacted from Digitized Public Records:  The 27-member U.S. Judicial Conference in Washington, D.C., headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and including senior circuit and district judges from around the country, voted to make federal criminal case files more widely available electronically. At the same time, it adopted rules to keep out personal information that traditionally has been contained in those criminal case files.  Attorneys, not court clerks, are responsible for redacting the information, and may face sanctions for failure to do so (see "Forbidden Facts:  Fearing abuse of data, panel tells lawyers to delete key info from federal criminal court filings," The Miami Daily Business Review, by Dan Christensen, 30 October 2003,  at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1067350950070). 

4.  County Police Chief Manger:  "The Fastest Growing Crime in Fairfax County is ID Theft:"  At the Lee District Town Meeting and Community Day on 25 October 2003, Fairfax County Chief of Police Tom Manger said that "The fastest growing crime in Fairfax County is identity theft."  Chief Manger also highlighted the widespread loose control of sensitive personal information of American citizens by stating that "There is not a terrorist worth his salt who does not already have a fake Social Security Card."

5.  Copying VA Driver's Licenses is Illegal:  Apparently some Fairfax County car dealers have been requiring customers to submit their driver's license to photocopying, quite possibly so that dealers could run credit checks without customer permission in violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA").  FCPC Executive Member Mark Anderson of Fairfax recently discovered that copying Virginia Driver's Licenses is a class 2 misdemeanor (see "VA Code § 46.2-346. Unlawful acts enumerated. A. No person shall: …4. Reproduce by photograph or otherwise, any driver's license, temporary driver's permit, or learner's permit issued by the Department without obtaining prior written consent of the Department;" Source:  http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-346 and "VA Code § 46.2-350. Penalty for violation. Notwithstanding § 46.2-113, except as otherwise provided any violation of any provision of this chapter not declared to be a felony shall constitute a Class 2 misdemeanor." Source:  http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-350).  Interestingly, US banking regulations recently carefully re-drafted pursuant to the USA PATRIOT Act do NOT REQUIRE that any IDs be "copied" by financial institutions.  And although financial institutions are required under the PATRIOT ACT to verify identities of new customers, they are not absolutely required to see a new customer's "ID," if any, and are REQUIRED to have procedures to verify a new customer identity when it is not possible to inspect an ID credential.  Additionally, the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act  ("IRCA") permits, but does NOT REQUIRE, employers to copy the documents that workers present to certify work eligibility on INS Form I-9.  Take Action:  Refuse to Allow your Virginia Driver's License to be Copied.

6.  Canada Bans Passport Smiles to Appease UN Agency:  In a "papers in orders mentality" driven move sure to considered here in the USA soon, Canada has banned smiling for passport photos in deference to recommendations by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization which is pushing for standardized photo specifications around the world to facilitate the introduction of biometric security devices.  The organization's goal is to have face-recognition scanners in airports around the world in the not too distant future (see "No smiling! We're Canadian," The Toronto Globe and Mail, by Shawn McCarthy, 27 August 2003).  Since facial recognition has completely failed in all known public tests (including Virginia Beach, Boston, and Tampa) to catch criminals (see Airport anti-terror systems flub tests, USA Today, by Richard Willing, 2 August 2003 at http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2003/09/02-air-secur.htm) the UN wants to re-invent it's use on innocent passport holders by sharing biometric information with foreign governments and the travel industry.  To get a valid passport, Canadians must now send in two photos with "neutral expressions." That means a closed-mouth, straight-ahead gaze into the camera like a police booking photo.  Suzanne Meunier, spokeswoman for the Canadian passport office graciously notes that "We have already received photos with small smiles that we are ready to accept."  Take Action:  Smile broadly for your US Passport Photos…while you still can.

7.  Privacy Tips Every Citizen Should Know and Teach Her Kids:
Check Writing Privacy:  Marion Edwyn Harrison, President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation (http://freecongress.org), recommends that "When you pay by check, write as little on the "For" line as you need to tie the payee to the purpose.  Thus, in paying a credit card, mortgage or other obligation, dispense with the account or card number even though the payee requests it for the payee's, and not your, convenience."

8.  US Freedom Foundation Urges Employer Funded MSAs:  Under it's new director, Alexander Shively of Alexandria, the US Freedom Foundation is urging Congress to provide for expanded use of Medical Savings Accounts ("MSAs") by giving American employers incentives to offer flexible insurance alternatives that include employer funded MSAs (see http://www.freedomfoundation.us/excess_medical_bills_v__msa_s)).  Shively recently noted that MSAs offers employees more value, flexibility, and privacy than the plans now offered by the US Insurance industry through employers.

9.  Privacy Reference Link of Interest:  Privacy Activism - http://www.privacyactivism.org [and coming soon:  http://www.FairfaxCountyPrivacyCouncil.org].

10.  Privacy Quote: "As evil and bad and vile as terrorism is, in 2002 we had over 18,000 homicides in this country and not one was committed by al Quaida."  - Special Agent Michael Mason, Clifton Resident, and Director of the FBI's "Washington Office" which covers Northern Virginia (see "New Chief of FBI Office Comes Prepared," The Washington Post, Fairfax Extra, 16 October 2003, page 4, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A27844-2003Oct15&notFound=true).

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Questions, or to be added/deleted from future Alerts?  Contact Mike Stollenwerk at majstoll@aol.com.

Sincerely,
Mike Stollenwerk
Chairman
Fairfax County Privacy Council