Galvin sees privacy issue on Patrick site

[Breeze54]

Galvin sees privacy issue on Patrick site

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/27/galvin_sees_privacy_issue_on_patrick_site/

By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | March 27, 2007

Secretary of State William Galvin said yesterday that Governor's Deval Patrick's new grass-roots website
violated the privacy of Massachusetts voters by making their home addresses easily available to online visitors.
Patrick's political committee later removed the house and apartment numbers, leaving only the street names.

"We go to great lengths to protect the confidentiality of voting lists from vendors and sales people,
and we're concerned there is information out there that shouldn't be, for instance, police officers' residential
addresses, deceased voters, apartment numbers of elderly voters," Galvin said.
"I'm told there are people who have restraining orders on the list with their residential address."

snip--->

The problem, Galvin said, is that another person's last name or phone number could be entered
on the site, and the user would see the home address of anyone with that name.
Also, the voter list apparently included unlisted phone numbers. <-- snip

snip-->

The committee removed street and apartment numbers yesterday to protect the privacy
of anyone uncomfortable with the level of detail, Morningstar said.
But she added, "None of our users have said they had any concern about their own privacy."

Blatantly false!! They have NOT removed all addresses and Apt. numbers!!

snip-->

Galvin said he is not sure whether the committee went far enough by removing street and apartment numbers.
"We've got concerns, and I'm attempting to address them," he said.

John Reinstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said he
does not understand why users are required to register. "I'm puzzled by the whole thing," he said.
"Registering doesn't seem to deal with the issue of people posting anonymously, because anyone
can presumably get an e-mail account and use that to post under someone else's name."