Thanks to a website error, the information of up to 600,000 Americans was revealed on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website earlier this year. Three months later, North Dakota resident (and HUD client) Heather Thompson received a letter detailing the mistake, which she then shared with Valley News Live reporters in Fargo. You can read the story and see the video here.
“The government is supposed to protect you and your information,” Thompson says in an on-air interview. “You have to sign all these forms to release your information and privacy statements and then something like this happens? How?”
According to the story, the letter was sent from the office of HUD Senior Agency Official for Privacy Helen Goff Foster, though on the HUD website, Foster is listed as the “Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and Executive Secretary.”
The letter said, in part: “information relating to some people who worked for employers that sought HUD/Empowerment Zone-related tax credits, including name, address, and full or partial social security numbers, was also disclosed.”
HUD isn’t sure if the data was “accessed or used during the time it was available on our website.”
The local Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority wasn’t aware of the incident until concerned tenants began calling. At first they were concerned it was a scam, but they verified the info with the Washington agency.
“It would be different if the material was hacked but it wasn’t hacked. It was put out there,” Lynn Fundingsland, the Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority executive director, told the Valley News.
According to the Valley News story, “the Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority says almost 600,000 names and social security numbers were posted to an unsecured website viewable to the public and it was not their doing but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”
Forbes picked up the story (along with a number of other sites) and Forbes contributor Lee Matthews reached out to HUD to confirm the number of records exposed.
To help the victims, HUD is offering a free year of credit monitoring with TransUnion.
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Image: Unsplash