From today’s paper:
State Controller Thomas DiNapoli is taking major heat for the office blunder that led to the Social Security numbers of hundreds of state lawmakers and staff members being posted online.
“No one is happy,” groused a source close to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a close ally of DiNapoli, whose office mistakenly included the personal info in a database to be published by a news site.
A second legislative source said lawmakers are “furious” that they were left open to potential identity theft by the PR fumble. The source, a legislative aide, questioned why DiNapoli’s press shop had access to the information in the first place. “Is the sloppy way in which this was handled indicative of how he runs his entire office?” the source asked.
The foulup affected 319 lawmakers and staff, as the Daily News reported Saturday. A DiNapoli spokeswoman said the Social Security numbers were listed in a hidden tab of a computerized spreadsheet listing the daily travel expenses of lawmakers.
The error was not noticed until after Gannett News Service published the material online. Anyone could have accessed the data by clicking on the tab.
DiNapoli’s office took immediate steps to have the information removed from the Web, and then sent letters Friday night to all who were affected, said spokeswoman Jennifer Freeman.
Search engines were contacted to clear any references to the info, and the office is doing an audit, she said.
“We took this extremely seriously,” Freeman added.
