A federal database containing personal information on every person in America who gets a job or files an unemployment claim may be used to track sex offenders, according to a report released this week.
The Government Accountability Office in June briefed (PDF) staffers of the House Ways and Means Committee on three possible ways to adapt the National Directory of New Hires to track down sex offenders who fail to update their registration on sex offender registries, or who move from one state to another.
Originally established in 1996 to track down people who fail to pay court-ordered child support payments, the National Directory of New Hires contains data on all new hires, quarterly wage reports and unemployment claims made in the United States. It’s now also used to track down people who fail to pay off student loans, as well as verify claims for unemployment and low-income housing.
While states maintain separate sex offender registries, they are all required to send their data to the National Sex Offender Registry maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which now contains records on over 400,000 convicted sex offenders. But because many sex offenders fail to keep their registrations up to date, the report said, the offenders frequently cannot be located. Law enforcement agencies have turned to motor vehicle records and private commercial databases to locate some sex offenders.
The National Directory of New Hires, however, cannot be used for any purpose not authorized by law. So Congress must authorize a change in the law. GAO presented three possible options for granting law enforcement access to the NDNH database:
The FBI would, in the course of an investigation, request records for specific individuals from the Office of Child Support Enforcement, which maintains the NDNH database. Or, the FBI would be allowed to access data directly from the NDNH database, “either for a specific offender or to pursue an investigation in a particular region.”
The NDNH database would be used directly in order to update records in the National Sex Offender Registry using computerized matching.
Under a hybrid approach, the states would submit information requests to the FBI, which would then look up the sex offenders in the new hires database on their behalf. This would also allow states to locate people who were released from prison before the creation of the sex offender registries.
Any of the approaches would allow law enforcement to locate sex offenders wherever they move in the U.S., even if they don’t update their own entry on the sex offender registry, by tracking where they work — which law enforcement would also learn.
The drawbacks, GAO noted, were that 21 percent of the entries in the sex offender registry don’t have Social Security numbers, complicating automated matching, that the new hires database does not include everyone in the country, such as independent contractors and many self-employed individuals, and that granting “wider access to the NDNH could jeopardize the security and confidentiality of the information it contains.”
The report leaves it to Congress to choose which of the three options for linking the databases it likes best, noting that the costs and benefits of any of the approaches are “uncertain.” But it did recommend that Congress implement the first option, granting FBI the ability to request records from the new hires database, as well as authorizing a test of automated matching between the two databases.
In a response to a draft of the report, Daniel R. Levinson, Health and Human Services Inspector General, noted that the “privacy and security risks” associated with linking the databases “should be analyzed in greater depth.”
Levinson’s response continues: “The proposed use of NDNH data would move the use of NDNH into law enforcement, an entirely new direction, and might tend to increase the risk of privacy and confidentiality breaches. The potential ramifications of wrongful use of NDNH data, as well as inaccurate or outdated addresses, should be considered carefully.”
No one seems to consider, however, whether registering sex offenders — or, for that matter, virtually everyone — is a good idea. It always seems like it at first, but these databases, once compiled, tend to be used for things other than what they were designed and intended for. Then the law of unintended consequences, which no one can break, comes into play.
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ralf
Apr 03, 2007
It is a shame, it is alsways the same argument (the same for germany) people who are against such a database blame it on privacy risks. For shure it is a risk, but could it be really considered as more important than the fight against sex offenders.
Jens
Apr 05, 2007
It is time to break with the past. There are now new possibilities to fight against crime, let’s use them.
socialflea
Apr 06, 2007
Let me get this strait, is all this information stored in the same database? Hypothetically, I could make a payment on my student loans and someone can accidentally make me as a sex offender. Or crash and Microsoft access jumbles up the information and Amy McKellin is on unemployment.
ralph
Jun 26, 2007
The fight against sex offenders? Where did you get that slogan, Hitler?
Liberty
Jul 28, 2007
Hitler is exatly were all of the sex offender law makeup came from. From 1929 to up until the Nazi’s were giveing showers and running the worlds longest burning bonfires. In between those years the Nazi’s devised laws exactly like the Sex Offender laws you see today, exactly! I ask you to research this yourself. the Nazi’s were kind enough to tell the Jews that they were no longer citizens of Nazi Germany and therefore it was perfectly legal to inforce any law the Nazi’s came up with. On the other hand the leaders of our greate nation, deticated to their own well being,ignore the Constitution and Bill of Rights all to gether. Do a little more reserch please. You will find that like a virus, laws after time, alter themselves to fit a new environment. I have found that laws that were first written for sex offenders are now being used against non-sexoffenders.(Wikipedia,under sex offender laws)Good place to start, go from there. The leaders of this great nation lied and lied to the people to get these sex offender laws passed knowing full well that these laws set a precedence.That means they can use these laws as a blue print for other laws like them only against other groups of people. And what about the right to privacy and all those other things written down in the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights, It looks like these two documents are just like the Prirates code in the “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Their more of a guideline than a set of rules. Continuing to allow the leaders of this country to keep passing these types of laws is insane. In the end the american people will pay the price.
Mike
Aug 16, 2007
You got that right Amy. The files are only as good as the people putting the info in. Like in IL where they messed up a friends records and made him a pedophile when the lady who accused him was in accuality 33 years old. Some clerk hit the wrong button. He was unable to see his kids because of this snaffu and the county he was in did not give an dang. They told him that the state does NOT make mistakes. He finally got it straightened out.
fed up
Sep 24, 2007
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.” – Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf)
StopCriminalGovmnts
Jan 10, 2008
It always cracks me up when people act like keeping Sex Offenders registered matters at all. What a ridiculous crock of BS that most of country has just eaten up!!
Take a brief looks at some facts, people. Registering Sex Offenders is stupid. It’s worthless. If it were only worthless, it wouldn’t be that bad, but of course it is much, much worse than just worthless.
Briefly, here are just some of the benefits that Registering Sex Offenders gives us:
1. Protects no one, children or otherwise.
2. Promotes recidivism.
3. Costs a fortune.
4. Creates a false sense of security.
5. Reduces the likelihood that people will do what is truly effective to reduce sexual offending.
6. Diverts precious, limited resources and attention away from reducing sexual offending.
7. Creates a very large class of people who don’t care at all about being good citizens.
8. Puts all of us in more danger.
9. Enables the idea that people on the Registries are a class of people who regularly (and forever) can and should have their civil rights reduced and trampled upon. Establishes the precedence to do the same to more classes of people.
We (the U.S.A.) are on a very sad, anti-American path.
sex offender.
Feb 11, 2008
these laws are always the same. i’ve seen them drudged up again and again as i’ve been on this wild ride through the system. the only way to stop these type of laws from coming out against everyone and not just “sex offenders” and felons is to band together and tell the federal government that they have to follow the rules written into the constitution otherwise we will end up just like nazi germany. it’s time to stand up and tell these people that they cant keep doing whatever they want whenever they want and however they want. they cant keep rigging elections and passing laws that were never correctly voted in (income taxes), it’s time to get rid of the idiots and the elitist and replace them with real leaders and not just people looking to make a buck and get control. can we please get a R**o**t**n?