Local Governments Can Sell Your Personal Information

I was reading a Truston Identity Theft Blog post that posed the question of whether - or not - it was legal for local governments to sell personal information on line?

Here is an excerpt from the blog post:

The answer is YES. This article in FindLaw tells a gruesome tale of how state and local government is legally allowed to and has been posting your sensitive personal information online. This data could lead to identity theft and is being sucked out for use by data brokers that maintain files on everyone in the United States—and then sell your information to anyone that wants it. It was written by Anita Ramasastry, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law.

The point of her article is that laws should be enacted - which place greater controls on this process.

I have to agree!

Link, here.

This pretty scary considering - as reported by the Privacy Rights Organization - about 90 million Americans have been compromised - and some of the biggest compromises have happened at the data brokers making billions off of maintaining and selling your information.

Note that I found the Truston blog a pretty good resource - and the gentleman who writes it (Tom Fragala) is a former victim and current advocate of victims. He is developing a new product for identity theft victims that seems to be a lot more "friendly" than a lot of the current ones - and it even allows you to see if you have a problem before spending a single "penny."