ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
``Surfing the Web should not mean surfing into people's private lives,'' says one official.
The Social Security Administration Wednesday pulled the plug on a breakthrough on-line service - at least temporarily - after a bipartisan group of senators sent a harshly critical letter to the agency outlining privacy concerns.
``For the next 60 days, we will be conducting public forums in Washington and across the country on this issue,'' John J. Callahan, acting commissioner of Social Security, said at a hastily convened news conference. ``Nothing is more important to Social Security than maintaining the public's confidence.''
The SSA introduced the new program on its World Wide Web site last month to give consumers easier access to their own ``Personal Earnings and Benefits Estimate Statements'' (PEBES), records commonly used for retirement planning. The new program, like the slower mail-order system that preceded it, required users to provide name, address, place and date of birth, mother's maiden name and Social Security Number. But critics charged that such information is readily available to cyber-snoopers from public sources.
In their letter delivered Wednesday, the senators said, ``Although we support the Social Security Administration's efforts to make PEBES more readily available, we are concerned that `PEBES Online' may not afford sufficient protections against violations of individual privacy,'' wrote William V. Roth, Jr., R-Del., Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., John B. Breaux, D-La., John H. Chafee, R-R.I., and Charles R. Grassley, R-Iowa, as well as Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., and Trent Lott, R-Miss.
``Basically it was a good idea, but badly executed,'' Roth said in an interview.
``Surfing the Web should not mean surfing into people's private lives,'' Chafee said in a statement.
Since the site came under scrutiny in the news media earlier this week, nearly 10,000 people called the agency's toll-free number to complain. Visits to the site skyrocketed: Until the first news reports, some 7,000 people a week used the site. Tuesday alone saw 8,000 visitors, and many others complained that they could not get in at all. Users can still request their PEBES online at www.ssa.gov and it will be mailed to them.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said the program, with proper security precautions, should be preserved because it gets important information to consumers at no cost. ``It's unfortunate for the agency and for the American taxpayer that they had to pull the service,'' said Leahy, who compared permanent elimination of the plan to ``throwing the baby out with the bathwater.''
The incident already has led to calls for new regulation. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., said he is introducing legislation to ban information about individuals' earnings, tax records and Social Security benefits on the Internet. But Deirdre Mulligan of the Center for Democracy and Technology said that ``knee jerk'' bills will end up hurting the public interest and the Internet as well. ``We're going to get some draconian, reactionary pieces of legislation that are going to stunt the growth of this medium,'' Mulligan said.
Another privacy advocate said Wednesday that the SSA dustup was evidence of broader concerns. ``This week the Social Security Administration became a lightning rod for growing public sentiment that the privacy problem is out of control,'' said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB