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Data Breach Exposes Personal Information Of Chicago Voters

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The Chicago Board of Elections is investigating a data breach that exposed the personal information of every registered voter in the city.

 

The voter rolls contain information for more than 1.8 million people, including their names, dates of birth, state ID numbers, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.They don't include voting histories. 

 

Elections spokesman Jim Allen said an outside vendor improperly put the information on an unsecure server.

 

"They were charged with safeguarding the very information that we’re talking about," Allen said, "so we’re reevaluating the contract and we will do everything in our powers to make certain something like this never happens again." 

 

It’s not clear whether anyone tried to steal the voter data. Allen says a cybersecurity expert found the breach over the weekend and notified Chicago election officials.