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State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

calbar.ca.gov

61–70 of 101 posts

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#61
post #39
post #10

> We apologize to anyone who is affected by the website’s unlawful display of nonpublic data Sounds like Missouri teachers SSN leak again... The website that judyrecords scraped, discipline.calbar.ca.gov, contained all of these "nonpublic" records for anyone to see.

It can be legal for you to scrape something yet very illegal to reproduce it. This applies even more when the site you scraped didn't have permission to show the data in the first place. Their mistake does not rise to be your permission; if it was my data, I would have as much a claim against you as them. "The software did it" is not an excuse.

I'm assuming the owner of this site has permission to reproduce court documents from each source, generally these types of documents are public record and can be reposted. It sounds like whoever configured this portal where the public can view documents misconfigured it and allowed for private documents to be shown, without any indication that they were supposed to be private.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#62
I used judyrecords to check myself after it was posted here. I had a charge from over a decade ago listed as a felony that had been reduced to a misdemeanor. The state system shows as a misdemeanor. I paid good money to an attorney for a misdemeanor. I'm not sure why judyrecords shows it as a felony, and it has me wondering about the effectiveness of my legal defense.

edit: If you're wondering if I'm a hardened criminal with a wake of victims left behind, the answer is no. I was 22 and got caught in the midwest with an ounce and a half of cannabis. This website, as far as I'm concerned, is displaying inaccurate information about me that that could have serious negative consequences for myself.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#63
post #32
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Bar website: >>>The site owner (of judyrecords) claims that the State Bar’s confidential and public case records were all previously available at a public URL. Is this true? >>>The State Bar Court website allows the public to search for publicly available case information. The extent to which the external aggregating website was able to obtain nonpublic information that was stored in the Odyssey case…

It’s pretty gross that they won’t admit they made a mistake and instead choose to mislead the public using deceptive language.

Well, it’s the CA state bar - it’s the den for all the lawyers in a juggernaut state. Misdirection through deceptive - sorry persuasive - language is literally what a goodly number of them do every day for a living.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#64

Why is it so impossible for these people/organizations to accept that they made a mistake and own up to it? The entire response by the State Bar of California is nothing but a deflection of blame that rests solely on themselves and their chosen vendor(s). What are they going to do next, call Missouri's governor and ask for the playbook to follow? The humans behind the scenes at the bar are looking incredibly pathetic…

> Why is it so impossible for these people/organizations to accept that they made a mistake and own up to it?

Maybe they accept it, but just don't admit to their mistake. Seems to be a growing trend, unfortunately. Perhaps the result of a society who more and more punishes people for admitting to their mistakes, rather than rewarding them for admitting to it and learning from it.

It's very sad to me, that this seems to be getting so much more common.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#65
post #64

Why is it so impossible for these people/organizations to accept that they made a mistake and own up to it? The entire response by the State Bar of California is nothing but a deflection of blame that rests solely on themselves and their chosen vendor(s). What are they going to do next, call Missouri's governor and ask for the playbook to follow? The humans behind the scenes at the bar are looking incredibly pathetic…

> Why is it so impossible for these people/organizations to accept that they made a mistake and own up to it? Maybe they accept it, but just don't admit to their mistake. Seems to be a growing trend, unfortunately. Perhaps the result of a society who more and more punishes people for admitting to their mistakes, rather than rewarding them for admitting to it and learning from it. It's very sad to me, that this seems…

[deleted]

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#66

Why is it so impossible for these people/organizations to accept that they made a mistake and own up to it? The entire response by the State Bar of California is nothing but a deflection of blame that rests solely on themselves and their chosen vendor(s). What are they going to do next, call Missouri's governor and ask for the playbook to follow? The humans behind the scenes at the bar are looking incredibly pathetic…

There may be liability attached. But this reads more like "a lot of data that we assumed to be private, and legally must be kept private appeared on a website. Here's everything we know and the steps we have taken." Essentially what happens when there's a screw up and lawyers get consulted about how to disclose it.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#67

On a related note, the California Bar website employs dark patterns that mislead members into paying inflated annual dues. When you renew your membership, there are a variety of addon payments you can opt into by checking boxes for these items. Then, on a later page, there are various addon payments that you have to opt out of. Making things even trickier, these aren't pre-checked boxes, which might lead the user to…

I noticed this too while trying to renew my bar dues. Its so devious. It degrades the whole profession when the gatekeeper is obviously trying to scam you.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#68
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have owned a car in NY, FL, and CA, have been married, and have received parking violations in all 3 of those states, and my very unique name is not present at all on that website.

I think their coverage is still spotty. I'm in California, and searched some names I know. The results came from some counties, but nothing from others. Notably I never saw anything from Los Angeles County, but tons of results from San Bernardino County. My own name brought up a couple tickets. In 2014 I got a cell phone ticket. There's something kind of funny seeing an all-caps official document explaining that THE…

there are at least six adults in the USA with my same first and last name, who are professionals and middle-aged .. one of the others died of a drug overdose, and looks a bit like me!

new world now

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#69

I used judyrecords to check myself after it was posted here. I had a charge from over a decade ago listed as a felony that had been reduced to a misdemeanor. The state system shows as a misdemeanor. I paid good money to an attorney for a misdemeanor. I'm not sure why judyrecords shows it as a felony, and it has me wondering about the effectiveness of my legal defense. edit: If you're wondering if I'm a hardened crimi…

Just spitballing, it's just a dump of records. They might have records for your arrest, arraignment, charge, plead, whatever (not sure what's in your state). When I was looking through it, it didn't seem like a comprehensive or organized set of documents by case.

You might want to check with a more thorough source, like a criminal background check agency.

Re: State Bar of California addresses breach of confidential data

#70

On a related note, the California Bar website employs dark patterns that mislead members into paying inflated annual dues. When you renew your membership, there are a variety of addon payments you can opt into by checking boxes for these items. Then, on a later page, there are various addon payments that you have to opt out of. Making things even trickier, these aren't pre-checked boxes, which might lead the user to…

I noticed this too while trying to renew my bar dues. Its so devious. It degrades the whole profession when the gatekeeper is obviously trying to scam you.

And it's been this way for at least two years. This isn't an innocent fleeting mistake.
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