California‘s Ministry of JusticeAccording to an investigation published Wednesday, he accidentally posted the names, addresses, and birthdays of almost 200,000 gun owners online. Officials didn’t follow policies nor understand how to operate their website.
An outside law firm contracted by the California Department of Justice conducted an investigation and found that personal data of 192,000 people was downloaded 2,734 more times by 507 unique IP addresses in a period of approximately 12 hours in June. All of these individuals have applied for a concealed handgun permit.
The data was released just days after a ruling by the US Supreme Court that all Americans have the right to carry arms in public. This decision overturned a California law that required people in California to give a reason for wanting a concealed weapon. The lawmakers tried to pass new restrictions regarding concealed carry permits but failed.
Investigators stated that they had not found any evidence that the timing of the data breach was motivated by nefarious intent, or was personally or politically motivated. Instead, they stated that state officials had planned to release the anonymous data they believed to be firearm-related data to meet the court’s ruling.
According to Chuck Michel (an attorney and president of California Rifle and Handgun Association), intentional breaches of personal information can lead to severe fines and penalties. Michel stated that his group is planning to file a class-action lawsuit against the state. He noted that the leaked data likely includes information from people in sensitive positions — including judges, law enforcement officials and victims of domestic violence — who have sought gun permits.
He said, “There are a lot of loopholes and unanswered questions, possibly intentional, some around this whole idea of whether or not this was an intentional firing. This is not the end of the investigation.
The Department of Justice contracted Morrison Forrester, a law firm, to investigate the data exposure. The company claimed it had the “authorization, independence, and authority to conduct an independent inquiry that follows facts and evidence wherever they may be.”
Officials at California Department of Justice didn’t discover about the breach until someone wrote Attorney General Rob Ponta an anonymous letter dated TwitterThe investigation also revealed that screenshots of personal information were available for download from the state website.
Initial state officials thought the report was a hoax. Two unnamed employees — identified only as “Data Analyst 1” and “Research Center Director” — investigated and mistakenly reassured everyone that no personal information was available to the public.
The website crashed due to too many people trying to download data. Unaware of the breach, another group of state officials attempted to bring the site online. The site was reactivated at around 9:30pm
Officials from the state wouldn’t take down the site until noon the following day. The information had been downloaded thousands of time by that point.
Officials from the state believed that they were providing mostly anonymous information for search queries and media inquiries about California gun use. However, the site was created by an employee who included personal data in several data sets.
The investigators found that no one—neither the employee who collected the data nor the officials who supervised the employee—knew the appropriate security settings to prevent the data from being available for public download.
Attorney General Ponta stated that this was more than a mere disclosure of data. He also said that it was a betrayal and breach of trust that was far below my expectations as well as those of Californians who were affected by the act. “I remain deeply outraged that this incident occurred and offer my deepest apologies on behalf of the Department of Justice to those affected.”
Other information was also misrepresented, including firearm safety certificates and data from the dealer’s sale registry. These data included the names, birth dates, genders, driver’s license numbers and gun deals of more than 2,000,000 people. Investigators found that there wasn’t enough information to identify anyone in the datasets.
The investigators recommended additional training and planning for state officials. They also suggested reviewing and updating policies.
Ponta stated, “This failure must be rectified immediately. That is why we are implementing all of the recommendations in this independent report.”
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