Maria requested a copy of her file from the California Student Aid Commission. When it arrived, she was shocked to find that in addition to her file, the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and phone numbers of 20 other people were in the same envelope as her record. She wondered what might have happened if that information (especially the Social Security numbers) had gotten into the hands of a dishonest person.

Maria's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Speech by Beth Givens, Director, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
First Amendment Coalition Conference
Panel: "Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own: Privacy Versus the Right to Know"

My job this morning is to talk about the privacy side of the balancing act that exists between access and privacy. I find myself in considerable conflict over the privacy/access issue. My first career is librarian, and as you probably know, librarians are proponents and pioneers of access.

Kate went to a city office to take a civil service test. Two days later, two police officers came to her house and arrested her for stealing a car. They told her that a car had been stolen at about the time she was at the city office. She had been identified as being in the area at the time. She insisted that she did not steal the car, but was told to appear in a lineup nonetheless. Unfortunately, she was identified by a witness and was taken to the women's jail. After spending the night in jail, she was released after contacting an attorney and the case against her was dropped.

Brad is a sales agent and makes sales calls from his home. His company uses their employees' Social Security numbers as their company ID numbers. It's on their business cards. When the employees take a new order, their Social Security number appears on their customer's paperwork.

Brad's name has been changed to protect his privacy.

By Beth Givens, Project Director
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

It never fails.

Diana has been a victim of check forgery fraud (someone used a computer to create a copy of her checks). They were able to withdraw $6,300 from her checking account to buy a car and apparently had a copy of her signature (she says they were able to make it look like her own hand). She was upset because the police would not take a police report and told her they're inundated with fraud cases. She also thinks the person works for the check sales company she used because the fraudulent check was cashed recently after she ordered new checks.

Presentation by Beth Givens
Marketplace of Ideas conference
Hosted by San Francisco Nonprofit Support Center

I'm going to talk for just a bit about privacy public opinion and trends, and then launch into what we at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse think are some do's and don'ts for nonprofits in handling mailing lists and other personal information.

Consumer advocates say that privacy is THE consumer issue of the 90s. We would not dispute that.

Someone with the same name and birthdate as Fred was involved in a hit-and-run case in northern California. The Department of Motor Vehicles sent notification of the case to his employer. Living in southern California, he had to spend considerable time and money, including traveling to northern California to appear in court, in order to clear his name.

Fred's name has been changed to protect his privacy.

Ricardo works for a California company in Mexico City. He saw the company doctor and requested an HIV test. He later found out that the doctor had told someone in the human resources department who in turn told his supervisor of the test request.

Ricardo's name has been changed to protect his privacy.

Sandy donated plasma at a private clinic. When she first donated, she was told that none of the information she provided to them would be released to anyone. Recently, she returned to the clinic to donate plasma again. She happened to glance at the bulletin board in the donation center and noticed that her name was included on a list of donors.

Sandy's name has been changed to protect her privacy.