Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp assured lawmakers Tuesday that criminals don’t have the sensitive information of 6 million Georgia voters that was exposed in a massive data breach last year.
How does he know?
“I am no expert on data security, but my personal opinion is if that information had made it out to the bad guys, we would already have had some issues,” Kemp said. “I am very confident that information never reached the public domain.”
Kemp made the comments during an appearance before a joint hearing of the House and Senate budget committees.
The secretary of state was in attendance to talk about his office’s proposed budget for the upcoming year, but he knew coming in that he would have to address the data breach.
The personal data released in the breach —- including Social Security numbers, birth dates and driver’s license numbers —- appear to have been inadvertently sent out in October to 12 organizations that regularly subscribe to “voter lists” maintained by the state.
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