Social Security Administration Exposed Data Of 36,000 Over Three Years

The Social Security Administration has published the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of more than 36,000 living people who mistakenly ended up in its Death Master File.

According to a report issued by the SSA's Office of the Inspector General, some 36,657 people were erroneously included in the SSA's Death Master List, which collects names of recently deceased individuals and is sold to the public.

The data was published between May 2007 and April 2010, according to the report. The SSA had already exposed an additional 26,930 individuals' records between July 2006 and Jan. 2009.

"We believe SSA should take additional precautions to limit the number of reporting errors and the amount of personal information published in the DMF—particularly the version sold to the public," the report says.

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