The leak included names, addresses, and phone numbers of lawful permit holders.
Status: Verified
California’s Department of Justice claims to have accidentally leaked all of the personally identifiable information for concealed carry permit holders in the state that applied between 2011 and 2021. The error occured during an update to the Department of Justice’s 2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal which allowed anyone to find all of the personal information of lawful permit holders and those who applied but were rejected.
The people whose information was exposed included celebrities, victims of domestic violence, judges, law enforcement personnel, and normal everyday citizens. The leaked data included criminal background, address, phone number, birthday, and drivers license number for each permit holder / rejected applicant.
The Department of Justice assured permit holders that while their personal data was leaked and likely had been shared on social media websites already, that their social security and financial information was not shared.
“This unauthorized release of personal information is unacceptable and falls far short of my expectations for this department” – California Attorney General Rob Bonta
California handles roughly 40,000 to 100,000 conceal carry permits every year and many counties in the state have been working to pass strict requirements on who can and cannot apply for a permit. The leak comes immediately following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that threw out an attempt by New York state for conceal carry permit holders to demonstrate an “extraordinary need”.
The DOJ’s “Firearms Dashboard Portal” wasn’t the only one impacted by this issue. Similar issues occured with the California’s Assault Weapon Registry Dashboard, Firearm Safety Certificate Dashboard, and Domestic Violence Restraining Order Dashboard.
Thanks Y’all:
This article is largely based on an excellent article by Jason Green at The Mercury News. We used a quote and some facts from his article and validated information about this story using his work as well. Jason’s article is far more in-depth and contains a lot more details on this issue. Read his full in-depth article on this supposed leak here: California exposes personal data of potentially hundreds of thousands of concealed gun permit applicants
Featured photo via Deposit Photos used under license
