Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns is raising concerns regarding the release of over 52,000 unredacted emails to an external agency.
During a press conference on Thursday outside his offices in Old County Hall downtown, Kearns claimed that during a forensic audit into former Finance Deputy County Clerk Alexander McDougall, Erie County Attorney Jeremy Toth disclosed statutorily and contractually protected data in those emails. Those emails are being sent from the Division of Information and Support Services (DISS) to the Erie County Law Department and an external auditor as part of the ongoing external audit of the Clerk's Office.
"It was over three months ago that this office asked for a legal opinion from the county attorney. He decided, without any notification or communication or clarification, to go ahead and get this information from DISS," said Kearns during Thursday's press conference. "That is why I drafted a letter to him, because these are serious violations of agreements and confidences that we have entered into as an independently elected official, as the Erie County Clerk with the state agencies. This former Deputy Clerk had access to sealed records and data, criminal records, as well as personally identifiable information and mental health records of Erie County residents. I am very upset about this. This is an egregious abuse of power.
"We asked for a legal opinion. Jeremy Toth, the county attorney, said even as my attorney, he has an obligation to represent me as the County Clerk. He says, 'I don't care what you think or what concerns you have, you are going to have to wait. I'm going to get access to this information.' So given that the law department failed to provide the requested and promised legal opinion, I'm going to ask for an outside legal opinion to the legality of this process."
Kearns also wrote to Michael Breeden, Chief Information Officer of DISS, of him improperly approving the disclosure of sensitive information from the Clerk's Office to the County Attorney without any notification or consent by the Clerk's Office, and arguably without any legal basis.
"DISS has confused the maintenance and storage of county data with having unprotected and unlimited access to confidential records," Kearns said. "As a Chief Information Officer, he was appointed by County Executive Mark Poloncarz, and he serves at his pleasures. But having unchecked access to confidential information and the ability to give third parties the same access should be considered an invasion of the public's privacy, even unintentionally, and may have caused privacy and security risk. He's not an elected official, and he does not have the authority to release that data."
Kearns says protecting sensitive information is essential to maintaining public trust and safeguarding citizens' rights.
This matter has been filed by Kearns with the Erie County Legislature, and he's asking legislators to take immediate action and get more answers from the county attorney and Breeden in Legislature Chambers.
Kearns also advises county residents, who may be concerned about the potential of their private data being breached, to contact their legislator and demand action.
"I would get on the phone and ask them to immediately have a hearing and get before the legislature, and get answers to this. Because, to me, this is criminal. It's a crime what they did," Kearns exclaimed. "They broke into this office, they looked at documents, they're going to review them, and they're going to decide what's confidential and what's not."
While Kearns doesn't believe any confidential information has been released or leaked to the public, under the county's agreement with the State Division of Criminal Justice Services, his office is authorized to report the breach, which he intends to do on Friday.
"Once that information is out in the public realm and other people see it that don't have access to it, it's gone. You can't take back privacy. You can't take that back. Once it's gone, it's gone. It's not private anymore" Kearns said. "Someone should pay for this, for this decision. I don't know who it was, but I'll tell you right now, if they took paper files out of this office, and I told you that the County Attorney's Office and DISS came in and they physically came in and took paper files, what would you say? That's theft."
He adds he'll let any potential criminal matter with this breach be determined by either the District Attorney's Office or the Sheriff's Office.