PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Who thought getting a ticket for drinking on the beach or fishing without a license would expose you to identity theft?
In Pinellas County, it might.
Police, deputies, and officers from other Pinellas County agencies routinely write Social Security numbers on citations that the I-Team discovered are often available to anyone looking up the citation on the Pinellas County Clerk of Court’s website.
“There's my name, my address, my date of birth, my sex, my height,” Todd Casellas said, showing us a citation he recently received from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.
Cassella woke up to find a ticket on his truck, citing him for illegally parking his boat on the street.
That citation also contained his full Social Security Number, something Cassella said shouldn’t be included for a minor infraction.
Social Security numbers required by state and judge
But in Florida, a Social Security number is among 19 pieces of personal information included on “Notice to Appear” forms handed out for non-criminal violations.
An order signed by Pinellas County’s chief judge in 2018 directs agencies to “fill in every blank on the form.”
That concerns Cassella, who has a nearly perfect credit score and worries someone could use his personal information to steal his identity.
“It could have blown off my truck. Someone could have stolen it, and I would have had nothing besides a headache for years to come,” he said.
But the I-Team has learned Cassella could have faced a much bigger concern since those citations are posted on the Pinellas County Clerk of Court’s website.
That city posts county ordinance citations online, along with official records and documents filed in family, probate, civil and criminal courts.
Large number of citations still had Social Security numbers
The Social Security number on Cassella’s citation had been redacted when it was uploaded.
But the I-Team found plenty of other cases where that didn’t happen.
We reviewed county ordinance citations for five random days between January and May of this year.
Of 102 citations, 28 had unredacted Social Security numbers posted online.
Laura Luna received a citation from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office for fishing without a license on the Dunedin Causeway in late April.
“I didn’t even have a rod in my hand,” Luna said.
We contacted her after finding her Social Security number online.
“It kind of ruined my day yesterday knowing my Social Security number’s out there and I could be susceptible to fraud,” she said. “I didn’t even know they put citations on public record.”
We found other people's Social Security numbers on tickets dating back years.
In St. Petersburg, police regularly issue citations to people who violate public park rules, like sleeping, camping, or urinating in the park.
We found one man’s Social Security number on four citations given months apart.
Beers on the beach could lead to identity theft
We also found Social Security numbers on citations issued to out-of-state visitors visiting Clearwater Beach during spring break.
Dozens went back home with $118 fines for open container violations.
But some of their Social Security numbers stayed behind on the Clerk’s website.
We also came across citations with Social Security numbers for littering, panhandling, and other minor offenses.
Attorney Joe Swanson of Carlton Fields specializes in privacy issues.
“One needs to look no further than the daily news to see how big of a concern cybersecurity and the protection of personal information is,” Swanson said.
He said agencies likely don’t need Social Security numbers to verify identities.
"It looks like these citations otherwise identify the person by address, some other identifying information that may be in the public domain already,” he said.
He points out that Florida law requires certain information, including Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, to be protected from public disclosure.
St. Petersburg Police, Clearwater Police, and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office all said in emails that it’s their policy to include Social Security numbers, and it’s the Clerk’s job to hide those numbers.
I-Team’s findings spark actions
Pinellas County Clerk Ken Burke agrees his office is responsible for hiding those numbers.
He had no idea Social Security numbers were not being redacted on some citations.
“We didn’t realize. We thought that the numbers were being redacted on our website,” Burke said.
He said dozens of employees at multiple locations black out personal information from thousands of documents daily.
Burke said his office depends on the software from a company called Computing System Innovations (CSI) to black out Social Security numbers.
“It’s supposed to have a success rate to it," Burke said. "That’s not acceptable.”
CSI is one of the nation's leaders in providing redaction software.
A review of public records by the I-Team shows that the company has provided redaction software to at least 28 Florida counties, including Pinellas, Pasco, Polk, Citrus, Highlands, and Sarasota counties in the Tampa Bay region.
Henry Sal, Jr., the company’s president, said in an email:
We have been in touch with the Clerk’s office as they conduct research on the citations you brought to their attention. I believe they have identified a configuration setting that prevented an isolated citation redaction workflow from being reviewed. We (CSI) will also be making a change to always redact citations at fixed offsets should human review not occur too. It is my understanding that Pinellas’ citations will be re-processed to remove the SSNs that might be present.
Changes proposed for the forms and process
“We are putting a big effort into going into past records right now, thanks to you bringing this to our attention, to see manually if we should go through and redact Social Security numbers of past records,” Burke said.
Burke also plans to ask the chief judge to adopt a new non-criminal citation document without a line for Social Security numbers.
How to make sure your Social Security number isn’t on the court website
In the meantime, he’s encouraging anyone who recently received a citation to check their own case on the Clerk’s website.
“Please check the court records. See if that number’s exposed. If it is, please contact us, and we’ll get it redacted immediately,” he said.
Todd Cassella counts himself lucky that the social security number on his citation wasn’t exposed.
“The ticket, that’s part of life. You know you did something wrong you deserve it. But you don’t deserve to have your personal information put out there to anybody and everybody in the world,” Cassella said.
If you find your Social Security number listed on the Pinellas County Clerk's website, you can contact their office to request a redaction.
If you have a story you think the I-Team should investigate, email us at adam@abcactionnews.com
