Many county governments across the U.S. are providing citizen’s full or partial Social Security Numbers available online or in bulk to prviate companies, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last week. At a time when states are seeking additional laws to punish businesses that inadvertently leak their citizens’ personal and financial data, the GAO’s findings would appear to highlight an overlooked area of consumer protection, as states weigh trade-offs between open-records laws, privacy, and the potential income that the sale of consumer records can generate. Roughly 85 percent of counties nationwide make the records available, and only 16 percent of counties place any restrictions on the types of entities that can obtain those records. As the GAO notes, public records — such as birth, marriage and death certificates, civil and criminal court case files, and property liens — that used to be accessible only in the county recorder’s