Thursday, January 25, 2007
State adoption records made public
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Database glitch reveals private info
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A teacher on issues related to computer security and ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater says he stumbled across a piece of his son's adoption record while searching a state-run court records Internet database looking for his parking citation.
"I was stunned," David Munro told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I knew some sealed records, including ours, had been partially revealed. I had no idea what the scope was."
Pieces of adoption records involving about 200 families were publicly exposed on the state system for about four months, authorities said.
But Jean M. Bousquet, chief information officer for the Wisconsin Consolidated Court Automation Programs, said no specific case information on the families was revealed. She characterized the situation as an anomaly and said she was unaware of it ever happening in the past.
The database Munro used is commonly referred to as CCAP, which stands for Consolidated Court Automation Programs, and it was implemented in 1999 to hold court records statewide.
There are more than 17.5 million cases stored on the CCAP system, of which 1.26 million are coded as confidential and not available for public viewing, records show. The latter include adoptions, juvenile records, mental health commitments, search warrants and terminations of parental rights.
Munro said he was checking CCAP to see what his students would be able to find out about him after he assigned them to use the database to look up information on themselves.
"Students get very bored if you start talking about ethics without any context," he said. "I'll say, 'Do any of you have a drinking conviction that your parents don't know about?' "
Munro said he came across a record that listed both him and his wife with the letter "P" after their case number, and it was cross-referenced with the case of a person they had never heard of who had "A" after his case number.
He said he searched the Internet for the name cross-referenced to his entry, and he came up with six listings in Wisconsin. He figured any one of them could be his son's biological family, but he didn't contact them.
"Our son, Matthew, has known he was adopted since he's talked, so I didn't see it personally as that big a deal," Munro said. "I was more alarmed for other adopted families. What if someone in my class checks CCAP and finds out they have a half brother or half sister they didn't even know about? It could be devastating for a family. These records are sealed for a reason."
Bousquet said counties are responsible for coding cases properly so the CCAP system can decipher whether the cases should be displayed on public access or not.
Database glitch reveals private info
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A teacher on issues related to computer security and ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater says he stumbled across a piece of his son's adoption record while searching a state-run court records Internet database looking for his parking citation.
"I was stunned," David Munro told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I knew some sealed records, including ours, had been partially revealed. I had no idea what the scope was."
Pieces of adoption records involving about 200 families were publicly exposed on the state system for about four months, authorities said.
But Jean M. Bousquet, chief information officer for the Wisconsin Consolidated Court Automation Programs, said no specific case information on the families was revealed. She characterized the situation as an anomaly and said she was unaware of it ever happening in the past.
The database Munro used is commonly referred to as CCAP, which stands for Consolidated Court Automation Programs, and it was implemented in 1999 to hold court records statewide.
There are more than 17.5 million cases stored on the CCAP system, of which 1.26 million are coded as confidential and not available for public viewing, records show. The latter include adoptions, juvenile records, mental health commitments, search warrants and terminations of parental rights.
Munro said he was checking CCAP to see what his students would be able to find out about him after he assigned them to use the database to look up information on themselves.
"Students get very bored if you start talking about ethics without any context," he said. "I'll say, 'Do any of you have a drinking conviction that your parents don't know about?' "
Munro said he came across a record that listed both him and his wife with the letter "P" after their case number, and it was cross-referenced with the case of a person they had never heard of who had "A" after his case number.
He said he searched the Internet for the name cross-referenced to his entry, and he came up with six listings in Wisconsin. He figured any one of them could be his son's biological family, but he didn't contact them.
"Our son, Matthew, has known he was adopted since he's talked, so I didn't see it personally as that big a deal," Munro said. "I was more alarmed for other adopted families. What if someone in my class checks CCAP and finds out they have a half brother or half sister they didn't even know about? It could be devastating for a family. These records are sealed for a reason."
Bousquet said counties are responsible for coding cases properly so the CCAP system can decipher whether the cases should be displayed on public access or not.
# posted by Senior Mom @ 3:14 PM 
