Hi Clancy,

Your not alone. Most Americans have no idea how much information the websites are providing or how useful the information is to criminals. Credit card numbers aren't exempt from the public records either. These are mostly found in the probate and divorce records. Divorce records will often display every bank and credit card number of the litigants and probate records often show images of credit card receits. But a criminal doesn't need a credit card number to take out a credit card in your name - just a little information about you.

A couple of years ago there were 120 victims of credit card fraud that were traced back to the Hamilton County Ohio Clerk's website. The criminals used driver's license numbers of people who had received traffic tickets. In this case, the criminals were local and confessed that they had gathered the information from the clerk's site. If the criminals had not been local, no one would ever have known how their information was stolen.

Although the site was placed online by his predecessor Gregg Hartman was the Hamilton County clerk at the time the breach was discovered.  He refused to promptly take down the site and refusal cost him his race for the Ohio Secretary of State in 2006.

Hartmann’s fate was sealed when the Dayton Daily News (DDN) nailed the Republican candidate for his 'willful negligence and foot-dragging in not protecting sensitive personal information on the Hamilton county website, despite being told by law enforcement officials and private citizens of what might happen if he didn't act in a timely manner'.

If you want to see more of how identity theft from county websites is sweeping politicians in and out of office read  Don't Let Identity Theft Rob You of Your Election