BENTLEYVILLE, Pa. — A serious privacy breach in Bentleyville is raising concerns after sensitive personal information was distributed at a public meeting.
At Tuesday night’s borough council meeting, packets were handed out to the public, which contained a finance committee audit report. Within that report were two pages containing highly sensitive personal information for eight current or former officials — including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and driver’s license numbers.
“I was flabbergasted pretty much immediately when I saw what was in this report as far as personal information,” said Councilmember Kara Shaw-Dearth.
Shaw-Dearth says the report included information for six former councilmembers, the borough’s former secretary, and the police chief. She said she discovered the information after the council meeting, but said the Finance Committee had met to review the documents before they were released.
The former Bentleyville mayor, Timothy Jansante, whose term ended in January, told Channel 11 his information was among those exposed. He has since contacted the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
“I was in absolute shock and dismay when I found out,” Jansante said. “I believe it was maliciously distributed because of relationships with some of these people on council now.”
Borough officials say they are now working to contain the situation.
In a statement, Council President Joe Pigeon said the borough is attempting to retrieve the packets and is taking steps to notify the appropriate agencies, as required by law, calling it an “inadvertent release of information.”
Even as those efforts continue, the exposure of that personal information cannot be undone, raising concerns about potential identity theft.
The police chief was not available for comment, but his attorney, Jeffrey Olup, said, “It is appalling that a municipality disseminated personal protected information not only about its dedicated police chief, but, incredibly, other members of the community. I have requested the township solicitor contact the Attorney General’s Office about this breach.”
Shaw-Dearth says the borough should now take additional steps to protect those impacted.
“At the very least, I think the borough needs to pay for identity theft protection for all of these people — forever. That’s not something that just goes away.”
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