Dinolfo Announces Social Security Redaction; Opponent Not Convinced ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - The Monroe County Clerk's Web site is free of social security numbers, County Clerk Cheryl Dinolfo announced Monday, after her office partnered with its software vendor to develop a process to remove the numbers from documents available online.

"The residents of Monroe County can rest assured that my office has taken every possible measure to protect them against identity theft while ensuring access to records that are vital to our local economy and real estate market," she said.

But Democratic County Clerk candidate Tom Hasman, who is running against Dinolfo in November, said that he doesn't believe the problem is corrected, as he was still able to find social security numbers on the Web site.

"I searched for two minutes, and the first three I did in a range came up as hits, the second three did not," he said. "So that's 50 percent. I mean, did I get that lucky? If I got that lucky, I'd better run to Vegas."

Hasman said there was also no need for the clerk's office to develop custom software, as there are companies that specialize in software to redact sensitive information from documents.

"If she did what she claims she did, she wasted taxpayer money reinventing the wheel," he said.

Although a cornerstone of Hasman's campaign platform is protection against identity theft, he said his criticism of the county clerk's office is not a political issue, and that the problems should have been addressed in 2007, after County Legislator Travis Heider contacted Dinolfo about finding constituents' social security numbers on her office's Web site.

"Last year, a nonelection year, it's still an issue...putting social security numbers online is anything but an election year issue, a political issue," Hasman said.

Hasman said having public documents available online is not a necessity, but a convenience, and that the Web site should be disabled until the problem is solved. He also said when the online office was first created is when Dinolfo and her staff should have addressed the information issue.

"If I was the clerk, before these documents saw the light of day online, I would have made sure that the numbers were already gone," he said.

Dinolfo said it's important to keep public documents available online to expedite real estate transactions.

"The Monroe County Clerk's Web site is a vital part of the economic engine here in Monroe County," Dinolfo said. "To shut it down would force people to come in and do work manually, not at times that are convenient for them. The world demands that we continue moving forward in forward-thinking ways to help not only people who use our office, but ... the taxpayers here in Monroe County."

Democratic county legislators have introduced a bill to ban social security numbers from appearing on the county Web site. The Ways & Means Committee has scheduled a vote on the measure for its meeting on Tuesday.

Several businesses that deal with real estate records have interpreted the measure as a discontinuation of the online office and written to Dinolfo to protest the bill.

Dinolfo dismissed the proposed legislation as political and said it was unnecessary considering the work her office was already doing.

"I do find it interesting that in the middle of that process that there is an announcement and action taken," Dinolfo said. "Quite frankly, that's shameful." © Copyright 2009, WXXI