2012 — Office of the Texas Attorney General: Lawyers responsible for challenging a voter ID law…
Data compromised
Personal information
Technical writeup
Lawyers responsible for challenging a voter ID law in Texas requested the Texas voter database for analysis. The Texas Attorney General's office released encrypted discs with the personal records of 13 million Texas voters, but half still contained Social Security numbers. A state police officer was dispatched to New York, Washington D.C., and Boston to retrieve the encrypted discs when the opposing lawyers revealed that a mistake had occurred.
Root cause
Unintended disclosure