Wednesday afternoon, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office issued a press release regarding the massive data breach RedState reported Tuesday which allowed the personally identifying information (PII) of numerous categories of gun owners in the state to be downloaded from its Firearms Dashboard. Bonta admitted that the breach occurred, and the press release detailed the types of personal information that were exposed and the categories of individuals affected – which turns out to be more widespread than first reported.
California Department of Justice announces that it has disclosed personal information in connection to the June 27, 20,22 update of their Firearms Dashboard Portal. Based on the Department’s current investigation, the incident exposed the personal information of individuals who were granted or denied a concealed and carry weapons (CCW) permit between 2011-2021. Information exposed included names, date of birth, gender, race, driver’s license number, addresses, and criminal history. The event didn’t reveal financial and social security numbers. Data from the following dashboards also were affected: Assault Weapon Registry and Handguns Certified For Sale, Dealer Record of Sale. Firearm Certificate Safety dashboards. Gun Violence Restraining Order dashboards. DOJ will soon report on additional details regarding the potential exposure of personally identifiable information from these dashboards.
The press release doesn’t indicate exactly when the office was made aware of the breach, but states that the dashboard was shut down Tuesday morning and was publicly available for less than 24 hours.
Bonta also provided a statement, stating that an investigation is underway into the incident.
“This unauthorized release of personal information is unacceptable and falls far short of my expectations for this department. This occurred at the California Department of Justice. My investigation was immediately initiated and I will implement strong corrective actions where needed. California’s Department of Justice has been entrusted with the protection of Californians’ data. The individuals whose data was disclosed may feel stress. I am deeply disturbed and angered.”
Corrective actions are welcomed and an investigation is essential. However, in order for California gun owners to even have a scintilla of trust that when they abide by the state’s draconian gun control laws and necessarily provide the state with their personal information, that that information will be protected from public access, Bonta’s office must be transparent about how this breach occurred. Even with that transparency, California gun owners will still understandably be leery that the information they provide won’t end up being “accidentally” disseminated publicly or used by the state to harass them. But transparency is the right path, and it’s a good first step and would paint Bonta as a little more humane than former Attorney General Kamala Harris, who couldn’t have cared less about anything that would negatively affect the state’s gun owners.
Bonta is an ex-Bay Area Assemblyman, who was elected to the office. He will be up for election in November. It’s important that he doesn’t appear extremist. In the June 7 primary Bonta received 54.4 percent of the vote, but he knows he’s facing an electorate that’s not so keen on the state administration anymore. Newsom was able to get 60 percent of votes in the recall election. However, that number dropped to 54.9 percent at the primary. Two Democrat incumbents in statewide office (Superintendent of Public Instruction and Insurance Commissioner) received far less than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, and knowing that education and crime are two issues Californians are most angry about this year, Bonta doesn’t have a lot of ground to lose.
The Department of Justice will reach out to those whose data was disclosed directly, and they will provide instruction on how to sign up free for credit monitoring.
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