Goal

To find an enterprise-wide solution to protect Montgomery County citizens from identity theft by removing sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, EIN, birth dates, bank account numbers and credit card numbers from Montgomery County Clerk of Court, Probate Court and County Court public records. 

Solution

ID Shield Automated Redaction Software

Challenge

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America and the #1 complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. Estimated losses in the United States exceed $50 billion per year. No region of the country is immune, with 5% of households earning more than $75,000 affected by this crime. 

Ohio residents filed 7, 178 identity theft complaints in 2007. In May 2008, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland responded to this alarming trend by signing into law legislation mandating all county agencies to redact private information from public records by September 2008. Prior to the mandate, Montgomery County Clerk of Court Gregory Brush recognized the threat posed to the county’s 542,250 citizens and issued an RFP for automated redaction in November 2007. Extract Systems was selected because of ID Shield’s ability to accurately locate sensitive information in a wide array of records. Other factors cited in selecting Extract were the successful redaction solution Extract Systems delivered for the Ohio Secretary of State, and ID Shield’s easy integration with Montgomery County’s existing document management systems.

Outcome

ID Shield is scanning a back file of over 21.5 million publicly available Montgomery County recorded documents from the offices of Clerk of Court, Probate Court and County Recorder with a slated completion dates of November 2008 for the Clerk of Court and May 2009 for the Recorder. Extract Systems will continue to work with Montgomery County, redacting approximately 2.2 million documents annually as they are filed.

Customer Profile

Montgomery County officials are impressed with ID Shield’s superior ability to accurately locate and redact sensitive information in a wide array of public court files and records, ranging from birth certificates, domestic relations, civil, criminal, probate wills, judgments and property records.

"Montgomery County chose Extract Systems after a thorough review of responses to our RFP on redaction efforts. It was obvious after this review that Extract delivered the expertise and reliability that we had hoped for. Extract is one of the best vendors we have ever worked with. I wish all of our vendors were as responsive and dedicated to providing superior service."
Gregory Brush
Clerk of Court
Montgomery County, Ohio