I’m beginning to see a trend here: State governments are hiring idiots to run various web sites and other supposedly ‘internal’ systems.

The problem is the increasing number of cases where data that is supposed to be accessible only on internal systems is showing up on the Internet for anyone to access.

Yesterday I posted about the Louisiana Board of Regents, which made personal information belonging to about 80,000 people accessible on the Internet. The Board of Regents, if I am not mistaken, is a state agency.

Today there is word that state agencies in both Connecticut and Texas have exposed more personal information to whoever wants it on the Internet.

In Connecticut, some 100 former employees of a company that’s involved in a dispute with the state had their personal information posted on a site that was accessible from the Internet.

As a result, the information was picked up by search engines like Google, which is kind of like putting up a billboard by the side of the highway advertising free personal information for use by identity thieves.

In Texas, even celebrities are finding that they are not immune to having their personal information shared with the world via the Internet. Former football star Troy Aikman had his address and social security number posted on the Internet, thanks to that Lone Star blunder.

State governments appear to be in a big rush to modernize and make all kinds of information available on the Internet. In many cases, this is a good thing and makes it easier for consumers to access useful information.

However, there are apparently some state employees or contractors that aren’t smart enough to be trusted with removing vital personal information from various documents and databases before putting it online.

Identity theft is often a huge hassle for victims and it can take years to get through the ordeal and get it all straightened out. That’s why there is no excuse for things like this happening. None.

Those in charge of putting this kind of information online need to have the experience and smarts to complete the task without screwing it up. Even then, data like that needs to be checked and checked again to make sure there isn’t anything sensitive present before it is put online.

The incompetence of state governments does not really surprise me. I’ve known enough people though the years that have worked in state and local government to know how things work within organizations like that.

I guess all you can do is hope that your state or local government doesn’t decide to ‘modernize’ any data that contains your personal information.

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