Category: Social Security numbers

Washington County Mistakenly Releases 460,000 Partial Social Security Numbers

TACOMA, Wash.—A county in Washington inadvertently released nearly half a million partial Social Security numbers when responding to a routine public records request in December, according to county officials. The Pierce County Auditor’s Office, which mistakenly released the sensitive data, said in a news release that the error was quickly spotted and that the person…


By Fraud, $45.6 Billion in US Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Was Stolen, Says Labor Dept. IG

Criminals have fraudulently stolen $45.6 billion in unemployment benefits from U.S. government programs meant to assist Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic. The federal government started an unemployment aid program in March 2020 during the early days of the pandemic. The hundreds of billions in pandemic aid immediately attracted criminals, who exploited the…