I have read that requesting redaction of SS numbers is possible in Florida but I had not heard of this anywhere else. Governor Jeb Bush had his Social Security number and that of his wife redacted from a deed filed there. However this left the people who had bought Bush's home totally exposed as their social security numbers appeared there as well.

The problem is, John Q. Public doesn't realize his social security number (and worse) is being broadcast over the Internet let alone that he can have it redacted. Some enterprising abstractor could probably build a thriving business just by locating the offending documents and filing the necessary paperwork.

Of course, this will really do little to protect the citizens. A social security number, while  handy for some types of identy fraud isn't necessary in many, if not most, types of identity related fraud.

Not long ago, I found the bank acount and routing numbers to several prominent Fort Bend citizens displayed online by the County Clerk and her vendor partners. If I were a thief it would have been a simple matter to have "written" checks by phone or Internet until all the accounts were drained.

The rash of fraudulent deeds filed this summer did not require a social or anything except the knowledge of absentee ownership, an old authorized signature and a recent notary seal. All are readily available online in the affected counties.

The terrorists who were found with fifty driver's licences issued from five different states did not need a social. Just a driver's license number, name and DOB. They may have simply filed for a change of adress with the state and had the state deliver a shiny new DL to their "new" address.

The 100 judges in Alegheny County, PA who demanded the removal of their information be taken off the web site were not fearful of someone finding their SS # . It was their home addresses they wanted to protect in light of the recent murder of a Federal judge's mother and husband in her Chicago home.

When Liam Youens found Amy Boyer's Social Security number through a databroker he was ecstatic but didn't know how to use it. The information he needed was an address where she would be. The databroker delivered her work address where Youens met the 20 year old and fired several shots into her face and head before turning the gun on himself. Two weeks after her murder, identity thieves ran up several thousand dollars in debt in her name.
 
If, by some miracle, every social security number in every official public record were redacted tomorrow it would still leave thousands of copies available through the databrokers who have already, downloaded or bought them in bulk. Even if the databrokers in this country agreed to redact all their socials it would have little affect. The foreign databrokers and outsource companies would still have them available for sale along with even more sensitive and dangerous information the counties have recklessly provided.

The only answer is also the simplest. Stop the broacasting of county records outside the jurisdiction and stop exporting them outside the jurisdiction in bulk digital form.