Many Nonprofits Include Social Security Numbers on Public Documents, Study Finds
Submitted by Steve on April 12, 2012
From Noelle Barton at The Chronicle of Philanthropy:
Nearly one in five nonprofits publish private Social Security numbers on public tax documents, potentially exposing their supporters and employees to identity theft and other privacy breaches, an examination of federal tax forms has found.
Identity Finder, a company that specializes in security and privacy software, reviewed more than three million informational tax returns, known as Form 990s, filed from 2001 to 2006 and found that more than 132,000 charities had published at least one Social Security number on their tax forms.
Most of the Social Security numbers the charities revealed were those of donors, trustees, employees, directors, and scholarship recipients. Slightly more than a third of the Social Security numbers were those of the individuals who prepared the documents, the study found.