How data brokers can fuel violence against public officials

New report published Tuesday finds it in a while Violent threats For public service employees across the United States, state-level “blanket” consumer privacy laws do not adequately protect these employees. Civil servantsand creating a “data-to-violence pipeline.”

The report was published by researcher Justin Sherman of the Public Service Alliance Security Project, A platform Which provides free and discounted security services to current and former public employees. While Trump officials indicated documentation Describing federal immigration agents’ conduct at work as ‘violence’ and ‘defamation’ Sherman says the report focuses on the more traditional and widely accepted definition — publishing someone’s personal and private information, such as their home address, with the specific intent to harm them.

Sherman analyzed 19 different consumer privacy laws and found that while all of them give consumers the right to prevent data brokers from selling personal information obtained from private sources, none of them give “public employees the right to legally compel state agencies to redact their personal data from public records,” and none of them prevent data brokers from selling data, including people’s home addresses, when it is obtained through public sources such as property records or court files. Moreover, none of them include what is called a “private right of action,” which would allow individuals to file lawsuits for violations of their state’s privacy law.

Together, this means that information about public officials is uniquely available and that they have very few ways to prevent its publication.

Violent threats against public employees have increased, according to A Separate analysis By PSA and the Impact Project of more than 1,600 individual threats against public officials between 2015 and 2025. This analysis found that violent threats against local public employees, including school board members and election workers, accounted for nearly a third of the reports reviewed. It also found that threatening statements occurred at nearly nine times the rate of physical assaults, and that one form of threat could escalate into another.

A 2024 a report The Brennan Center for Justice found that greater numbers of women and Democrats reported increases in the severity of abuse since they first held public office, compared to men and Republicans.

Last year, the man was 57 years old Charged With the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state representative, with her husband in their home in Minnesota. according to Court recordsThe alleged shooter had handwritten lists of dozens of state and federal officials in Minnesota, including Hortman’s name and home address, as well as 11 “people search engines” that allowed anyone to find personal information about someone, including their home addresses, phone numbers and names of relatives, often for a small fee.

The report calls for legislation that specifically addresses privacy concerns for all public employees, including public school teachers and local elected officials, who are not necessarily covered by the current system. Federalism or state Privacy laws. He suggests that lawmakers could try to balance First Amendment and privacy concerns by regulating the digitization of public records and how easily they can be accessed remotely, rather than restricting them entirely.

While many public records can be useful to journalists and accountability watchdogs, repackaged public records sold by data brokers can make it too easy for abusive individuals to stalk and harass victims even when they move to a different state, said Sherman, the author of the new report. In the past, people searching for public records had to already have an idea of ​​where that public record was located, and physically go to that location.