A lawyer representing Jo-Ann Durfee of East Providence is asking for $75,000, an explanation and 20 years of credit monitoring from the City after it posted her social security number on its website this summer.
City Solicitor Tim Chapman said the claim, sent to the City by John T. Longo, an attorney with Citadel Consumer Litigation of Providence in an Oct. 5 letter, has been referred to the City's insurance company, the RI Interlocal Trust. If they decline to cover the City, he said, Chapman will defend East Providence in court.
That may well happen anyhow, said Longo, since the insurance company isn't likely to provide the explanation he and Durfee require. "The insurance company's not going to be able to tell us how it happened," Longo said.
Longo said that over the summer, the City held a Council meeting addressing citizen's concerns of cleanup of construction and demolition waste at the Pond View property in Rumford. The city posted a packet of information on its website in preparation for that meeting, Longo said, including a police report of Durfee's complaints of noise and activity during inappropriate hours.
Those police reports, Longo said, included Durfee's name, date of birth, address and social security number. Unlike the other identifying information, social security numbers are not included in police reports released to the public. The report released the same information for the owner of the property, Ken Foley. The information remained on the City website for two weeks, exposing her to extreme risk of identity theft, Longo said.
Durfee discovered the breach of her private information when she returned from vacation and was alerted to it by a friend, Longo said.
Regardless of whether he can prove the information was deliberately released, Longo said, doing so shows a reckless disregard for Durfee's privacy. Also, he said, the incident raises the question of why the police department is recording people's social security numbers. "Why do they need your social security number when they're taking a report?" Longo asked.
"Ms. Durfee gave neither her date of birth nor her social security number to the City; a police department employee apparently obtained them from Division of Motor Vehicles records. By then making that federally protected information public, the City violated the Drivers Privacy Protection Act of 1994," Longo wrote in the claim.
Police Chief Joseph Tavares said he could not comment on the matter, since it has been referred to Chapman.
Longo is also asking for a change of EP Police policy so it does not obtain or disseminate social security numbers without a legitimate police purpose, and payment of Durfee's attorney fees. Longo said he has 40 days by law to wait for the City's response before filing a lawsuit.
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