MSNBC reports that private data about hundreds of children was publicly exposed on the Net by government subcontractors seeking some temp help. According to the 2/8/04 report by MSNBC, files with the names, birthdates, even work schedules of the children's caregivers were posted by a computer consultant struggling with a database problem, and stayed online for weeks.
Kent Kisselbrack is a spokesman for the New York Office of Children and Family Services, which regulates the county agency that leaked the data, says MSNBC. "Personal information of the nature that was on this Web site, especially information about children, it's not appropriate for this kind of information to be available to the general public," Kisselbrack told MSNBC.
MSNBC says that the county agency had subcontracted database work to a community college, which hired a third party consultant, who in turn used RentACoder.com to find help. That contractor made several public postings for help and attached a zipped copy of the file he was working on ... containing the data about hundreds of children, all according to MSNBC.
Child privacy and online safety advocate Parry Aftab operates WiredSafety.org and was quoted about the incident as saying: "This is horrible."
Source: MSNBC - Government agency exposes day-care data (2/8/04)
Perhaps some of the creativity and money now being spent on controlling the unauthorized flow of pop music on the Net should be redirected to controlling the unauthorized flow of private data about children? Perhaps the RIAA has something in their playbook for a situation like this.
Questions: