Local News

Citizens Connect Accidentally Displayed Several Complainants’ Personal Information

By Sara Morrison @saramorrison

February 27, 2015

3 minutes to read

Laura Holland was not surprised when a convenience store near her home let its dumpster overflow with garbage and didn’t shovel a path to allow the garbage truck in to collect it; she’s had issues with the store’s dumpster practices in the past.

She was surprised, however, when she discovered that her complaint to the city about that dumpster appeared on the Citizens Connect website, leaving her name, email address, and phone number available for anyone to see.

Holland isn’t alone. Boston.com found several instances where complainants’ personal information was displayed on Citizens Connect without their consent or knowledge. In all of those cases, the complaints weren’t made through Citizens Connect in the first place.

In Holland’s case, she went through the city’s official website, which has a prompt for complaints about overflowing dumpsters. She entered in her email address as well as her first and last name and her phone number — which is required to proceed to the complaint form. Her message was then sent from the city’s website to the Citizens Connect service:

“I have to say I’m not happy about it, because now anyone knows that I complained,’’ Holland told Boston.com. “Luckily my complaint was buried among the hundreds, but I could have been receiving harassing phone calls. This is a fluke that needs to be changed.’’

Another woman went to a municipal building to complain about the snow on her street. Someone took her complaint, she said, and it appears that person called it in. The information — including her full name and phone number — was placed on Citizens Connect.

“Why they put my number for anybody to see?’’ the woman said. “I don’t like that.’’

Another man told Boston.com that he called his councillor’s office to inform it that snow was being illegally dumped on a nearby street corner — a violation Mayor Marty Walsh has encouraged residents to report. The Citizens Connect listing that resulted from that call included his phone number. Immediately afterwards, there was an indication that he didn’t want his information disclosed: “Caller would like to be called but did not want to leave his name.’’

Boston.com did call the man, and asked if he was comfortable with having his phone number on the site.

“No, I’m not, really,’’ he said — though he seemed far less pleased with the fact that the city had yet to act on his complaint about snow being placed on the corner of Alpha Road and Waldeck Street. (His ticket on Citizens Connect was closed, citing “no violation found/no cause.’’)

People who submit complaints through Citizens Connect have the option of leaving their contact information black “to submit anonymously’’ and uncheck a box marked “share with public?’’ to keep their information secret. (They just have to make sure their complaints aren’t closed by mistake.)

“We appreciate this concern being brought to our attention,’’ a spokeswoman for the mayor told Boston.com. “Information was accidentally entered into the incorrect field for a very limited amount of the over 100,000 calls that have been received over the past month, and we are in the process of resolving these cases.

“We are generating clearer guidelines for individuals who are inputting information from callers so this doesn’t happen again in the future,’’ she added. “Mayor Walsh has taken unprecedented steps over the past year to make city government transparent and accessible for all, and we want all residents to feel comfortable submitting any request through any of the available channels.’’

She advised anyone concerned about their information being made public to report it “by calling the Mayor’s Hotline at (617) 635-4500 or through the Citizens Connect app.’’

Holland’s personal information was removed from her complaint soon after the mayor’s office was made aware of its existence. So was the trash and snow around that dumpster she was reporting in the first place.

“I returned home from work that night and they were cleaning it out,’’ Holland said. “There were three Inspectional Service cars here watching to make sure it was done to completion.’’