You remember "Joe the Plumber." He was the everyday, blue collar guy used by John McCain's presidential campaign to represent the beleaguered American who is trying to make his way but is impeded by too much taxation. Well, lots of personal information came pouring out about Samuel J. Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio, and some of it was embarrassing.

It turns out that Ohio government workers were responsible for improperly searching his computer records and leaking the information to the press. Fred Williams, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, was placed on two weeks of unpaid suspension, while Doug Thompson, the department's deputy director of child support, will serve a four-week unpaid suspension. Two other agency employees will be disciplined. In addition, the department's director, Helen Jones-Kelley, improperly ordered staff members to look up records, and she was placed on unpaid suspension.

There is a serious lesson to be learned from these events--a lesson about protecting the privacy of personal information contained in government or employer computer files. Such records must be kept confidential and not breached, and certainly not used for political purposes. Every IT department must maintain stringent controls, and CIOs and their staffs must be vigilant.

For more on Joe the Plumber:
- see this WashingtonPost.com article

Related Articles:
'Joe the Plumber' gets hacked
IT security news from FierceCIO