SSNBreach.org

We all hear daily reports of thousands of identities being compromised on a daily basis.  The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimates that since January, 2005 there have been more than 217 million instances of "Data Breach," or individuals whose sensitive personal information has been compromised, exposed, or stolen.  In addition to these reported breaches, hundreds of thousands of records are exposed online every year, and never reported.

Almost person who hears a news story about a data breach wonders the same thing: Was I affected?  What information was exposed?  Who has my personal information now?  Am I at risk?

SSNBreach.org gives consumers the tools to answer those questions.  At SSNBreach.org, you can search for your name to find out whether your personal information has been exposed.  The website is a public service of the Liberty Coalition and offers third-party, unbiased information about identity breaches.  We tell you what information was exposed, under what circumstances, how it was exposed, and who was responsible.  With the information in your personalized Information Exposure Report (IXR), you can find out what risk you run of financial, medical or criminal identity theft, fraud, or other identity-related crimes.  Your IXR gives you enough detail to do your own investigation, and we give you links to free resources to help recover from identity theft.  SSNBreach.org will always be free to use.

How SSNBreach.org Works

The Liberty Coalition discovers most of the breaches documented on SSNBreach.org by using a major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  By doing simple advanced searches, we have discovered hundreds of files online with sensitive information, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and mothers' maiden names.

Once we find a breach, we carefully document the types of information that were exposed for each individual, and as much information about the breach as possible.  When we add names to our database, we dump all of the sensitive personal information, and replace it with a simple "Yes" or "No."

For example, let's say that the following information about "John Q. Public" was exposed:
Name: John Q. Public
SSN: 123-45-6789
Date of Birth: [None Listed]
Address: 123 Main Street, Anywhere, USA
Phone Number: (555) 123-4567
Golf Handicap: 43

When we add John to our database, this is what we include:

Name: John Q. Public
SSN: Yes. Exposed.
DOB: No. NOT Exposed.
Address: Yes. Exposed.
Phone Number: Yes. Exposed.
Golf Handicap: Yes. Exposed.

As you can see, no sensitive personal information ever enters our database.  After we document the breach, we wait until the caches of major search engines have cleared before we announce the breach on our website.  You can see an example of John Q. Public's IXR here.

The SSNBreach.org database is by no means exhaustive; in fact, it documents less than .2% of the total 217,000,000 reported breaches.  However, it is the only website anywhere that offers such detailed and personalized reports, and it is unique because it does not require the user to input any sensitive personal information.

-Aaron Titus
Information Privacy Program Director
Liberty Coalition