Personal Documents Dumped at Recycling Center
DULUTH, GA (CBS ATLANTA)
The Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection has opened an investigation into how and why documents with people’s personal information were dumped in a Gwinnett County dumpster. State officials said they opened the investigation after seeing a story on CBS Atlanta news.
“We value very much the information your station in particular provides,” said John Sours, with the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs.
The documents contained people’s Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and medical records.
“There is no way to justify an occurrence like that,” said Sours.
The documents appear to belong to a company called Staffing Solutions. CBS Atlanta News did some digging and learned it’s a staffing agency with offices across the country, including one in Alpharetta. Many of the documents found have an Alpharetta address. The address on the documents doesn’t exist. The address on the company’s website is vacant.
“You have to ask yourself, how would I appreciate it if somebody was treating my personal information this way? Inevitably, the answer is I wouldn’t like it, so I don’t want to treat anybody else the same way,” Sours said.
Sours said state law requires companies to take reasonable steps to dispose of documents containing people’s personal information. He said companies can shred, erase or redact the documents. Sours said the maximum penalty for failing to do so is $2,000 per individual violation.
If you believe your information may have been compromised or you know who dumped the documents, call the Governor’s Office of Consumer affairs.
