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State Representative Rick Hansen
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-6828
For more information contact: Ben Schweigert 651-296-5809
Column/LTE
FIGHTING IDENTITY THEFT
Dear Editor:
Due to recent budget cuts, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) recently left a door wide open to identity theft. The website used by many Minnesotans to make payments to the Department for license tabs had such weak security that the data it contained was easily available to any hacker on the Internet. Worse still, the Department doesn’t know whether the site was hacked or not and if so which records were stolen.
This is a big problem. When the government deals with personal information, it has a responsibility to keep it safe, and quickly repair any breach. While DPS has corrected the problem with the website, it has not made any effort to address the past problems.
In response, I co-authored an amendment to the transportation bill with Rep. Davnie that would require the Department to figure out if any data had been stolen, and to notify citizens whose information had been compromised. This would correct the past problems, by allowing people whose data was taken to protect themselves. The amendment passed unanimously.
This breach at DPS should serve as a warning to everyone in state government that we need to take serious measures to protect the safety of private data. I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that all state agencies are bound to tighter rules on data practices and have the resources they need to properly protect our citizens.
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