Maryland agencies are “inconsistent” on how they protect tens of millions Social Security numbersand other personal information and in at least one case lost “several laptops” containing state audit work, officials testified Wednesday during a hearing before the new Identity Theft Task Force.
The hearing showed “vulnerabilities” on how the agencies protect that data, said task force chair Del. Susan Lee. Millions of birth and death certificates are stored manually, and dozens of state agencies, from the Motor Vehicle Administration to state universities, collect the “social” for many different purposes with varying degrees of security.
The state probably needs more centralized oversight of the systems, said Lee, a Montgomery County Democrat who sponsored the legislation creating the task force. The state is not covered by a new law covering notification about commercial data losses, and the task force will look into recommending such a law.
Marie Day, representing the credit card industry for Bank of America on the task force, said agencies “seemed they had a wide range” of policies on protecting data and needed to get more proactive.
In one startling revelation at the end of the three-hour hearing, Deputy Commissioner of Financial Regulation Joseph Rooney, who serves on the task force, said the agency “lost several laptops” containing audit work from state financial institutions. “But that [data] is totally useless because it has been encrypted,” Rooney said.
With identity theft so prevalent, the MVA in September will begin allowing victims of identity theft to have a “V” placed on their driving records and licenses to let police know if someone else tries to use the victim?s name or identifying information at a traffic stop.
“Our system was held up as the first in the nation,” Associate Administrator Christine Nizer said.
Representatives of state and private colleges and universities said they no longer put Social Security numbers on ID cards ? a practice prohibitedunder a 2005 Maryland law, which also banned putting the number on mailings, the Internet or to access a Web site.
Sen. Delores Kelley, D-Baltimore County, co-chair of the task force, pointed out that the Social Security number remains on thousands of older transcripts. She also noted the full number was needed to collect university library fines ? a benefit that did not seem worth the costs.
