Government Goof-Up

Our state government had a slip-up in the past few weeks. They accidentally made public some information that had names and addresses, with SocSec numbers attached. It wasn't a big group of people, but I was one of the group. I got a letter yesterday informing me of the risk. Along with profuse apologies, the letter had all sorts of information about "fraud alerts" and "freezes" that we can get from the credit bureaus, and I need to figure that out. They've provided for insurance that will cover up to $20,000 to compensate victims of identity theft. (From what I've heard, that amount could be barely a drop in the bucket, given the trouble identity theft would cause.) They've offered to pay for a year of daily monitoring with the credit bureaus, in an attempt to protect the people whose numbers were released.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what "fraud alerts" mean. It sounds to me like the inconvenience of having a fraud alert on your record probably means something as inconsequential as not being able to get a new credit card while you're in line at the check-out of a department store. Like, maybe, before they extend credit to you, the company will actually have to verify your information like they all did 20-30 years ago.

They assure us and assure us and assure us that they take utmost care with our personal information and will never release it to anyone. I never believed that. I get called paranoid. I get told that I don't understand the high value businesses and government place on privacy. But mistakes happen. And sometimes (not this time, though!) there is intentional manipulation of private information too. But even if we believe that everybody in government or hospitals or insurance companies is honest and upstanding and completely moral, nevertheless, mistakes happen.

I guess we're going to learn more about credit bureaus this year than we intended.