Article: California Sells Birth Data to Web Site, Raising Fears.

By Dion Nissenbaum, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Nov. 29--SACRAMENTO, Calif.--The birth records of more than 24 million Californians have been sold by the state and posted on the Internet, offering easy access to critical information needed to create fake identities.

By logging onto a genealogy Web site, people can gain access to such personal data as someone's place of birth and mother's maiden name, which can then potentially be used to access bank records and other sensitive material.

While the sale of the database was legal, a leading state senator and expert on privacy said Wednesday that she was ...

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