Personal info on the Web raises identity theft concerns

Social Security numbers of area students found

HEATHER SACKETT, News Staff Writer
LAKE PLACID — Hundreds of Social Security numbers of former students from all over the northern Adirondacks, including Lake Placid, were released onto the Internet, potentially compromising those people’s credit and financial status, and opening the door to identity theft.

Until the numbers were blacked out on Tuesday, the whole world had had access to the Social Security numbers of 341 recipients of the Lake Placid-based Deo B. Colburn Foundation Scholarship for the 2003-04 academic year through the Washington-based Economic Research Institute’s Web site. The information had possibly been there for years.

AuSable Valley Central School graduate and past scholarship recipient Lindsey Pashow said she made the unsettling discovery on Nov. 21 when she entered her name on a “Google” search.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”

Pashow said she is filing a formal complaint with the attorney general’s office. She has also filed a credit report complaint and contacted the state police.

The Deo B. Colburn Foundation is a charitable organization that gives performance-based college scholarships to local students. For the 2003-04 academic year, the foundation doled out $227,500 in $500 or $1,000 amounts per year to each student.

The foundation’s 2002 tax return, form 990, which is a public document, appeared on the Economic Research Institute’s Web site. As an addendum to that form, however, were the 341 names, addresses, academic institutions, the amount of money recieved and Social Security numbers of the scholarship recipients.

The numbers were blacked out sometime on Tuesday after the ERI learned of the mistake.

Attempting to determine who leaked the information and how it ended up on the Internet has led to finger pointing, with no organization willing to take the blame. Linda Lampkin, a research director at ERI, said revealing the personal information was a mistake on the foundation’s part.

“They (the Social Security numbers) were up there because the foundation stuck them up there,” she said. “The instructions say don’t put them up there because it’s a public document.”

The ERI is a research firm that surveys and compiles the financial information of nonprofit groups. According to Lampkin, the ERI processes more than 1 million tax returns from nonprofit organizations. Lampkin said the foundation sends its tax returns to the federal Internal Revenue Service, which then sends the information to the ERI.

“The foundations just slap an attachment with a list,” she said. “We attempt to look for (the accidental adding of Social Security numbers), but we have over a million images. We don’t have the time to look.”

Lampkin said the information could have been on the Web since 2005. She added that there are other organizations similar to ERI out there that may also have access to the same information.

Craig Randall, of Lake Placid, is a trustee and president of the Deo B. Colburn Foundation, and earlier this week announced his candidacy for Lake Placid village mayor. He maintains it is the IRS, not the foundation, that is at fault.

“When we first heard about it last week, we were mystified,” he said. “I can assure you the foundation would never make the information public. I have no idea how the IRS can release that information to the public.”

Randall said the foundation has sent a complaint to the IRS and a letter of concern to local elected officials. He would not say if it was possible that the foundation made a mistake by accidentally including the Social Security numbers along with the tax return.

Hannelore Kissam, of Westport, prepares the foundation’s tax returns, including the 2002 return containing the Social Security numbers. She said the IRS used to, at one time, require the Social Security numbers of all the recipients of the scholarship but stopped that practice a few years ago. She said that while New York state informed the foundation that its tax returns would be open to public inspection, the IRS never informed the foundation of a similar change.

“We didn’t know (in 2002) that the IRS didn’t require them anymore,” she said. “We never sent these things to New York state. We did not know the IRS was publishing the returns.”

Kissam said she no longer includes recipients’ Social Security numbers with the foundation’s tax returns.

But Diane Besunder, a New York state media contact for the IRS, said her organization is not responsible for posting the numbers.

“It is a little bit of a puzzlement,” she said. “The one thing I can assure you is that we didn’t put it online. It’s some kind of error.”

Jane Zanca, public affairs specialist with the Social Security Administration, said that however the numbers ended up online, it doesn’t appear to have been done on purpose or with an intention to defraud. Still, the Internet is hard to police, and anyone who viewed the document could have potentially saved or printed the information.

“Although they can remove it, you can’t guarantee that 17 other organizations or agencies haven’t picked it up,” Zanca said.

The problem appears to have been taken care of for now and there is no evidence yet of identity theft, but the fact that no one can say for sure how long the information was out there is still upsetting to Pashow.

“I kind of wish I had never received the scholarship now,” she said.