Reporter Alison Hewitt reports today that a new law is requiring county recorders to redact the first five digits of Social Security numbers on public records.
The program will prevent “the fraudulent misuse of personal information” gleaned from public records, a county staff report noted.
No, really? Shouldnt this have been before? Attorneys seem to redact everything else from public records.
“There was no way we could do this (before),” said Sharon Gonterman, the assistant registrar-recorder/county clerk. “Anything that’s going to eliminate identity theft is great.”
The county Board of Supervisors likely will enact local aspects of the law today, allowing the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office to charge a new fee permitted by the state law to pay for the redacting.
The law allows the county to increase the recorder’s fees by $1 for recording documents. That doesn’t include birth certificates and marriage licenses, Gonterman said.
“This is just about property documents,” she said. “Trust deeds, mortgages, defaults, homesteads, liens. This last calendar year we recorded 2.5 million documents.”
And at $1 per document, the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office expects to raise at least $2 million annually to fund the “Social Security Number Truncation Program,” which was approved in October by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he signed Assembly Bill 1168.
The money is required to go only to the redaction program, and the county must also agree to audit how the funds are used if it charges the $1 fee.
Well at least an audit should keep them fiscally responsible.
