AUGUSTA — The Maine Department of Labor says personal information belonging to 146 unemployment benefit recipients were seen by others because of a mistake made while uploading tax documents.
The documents were loaded into the incorrect accounts, making the benefits and other details available for others to see for a brief period, officials said Wednesday. The exposed data did not include birth dates, banking information or full Social Security numbers.
The upload was quickly stopped, but the data could be seen by others for about 90 minutes, officials said.
“We take this seriously and are working to ensure that the 146 potentially impacted people are aware and are provided appropriate resources,” said Maine Labor Commission Laura Fortman.
Sen. Stacey Guerin, R-Glenburn, suggested taking the system offline to upload such documents in the future. In doing so, she said mistakes could be caught before the documents went live in the system.
“While mistakes can happen, we hope the administration does everything they can to protect the identities and personal information of Maine residents,” Guerin said in a statement.
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.