Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade viewers were surprised to find shredded police report information with addition to the normal parade confetti.
An investigation by Jay Foley of ID Theft Info Source on Nov. 26 resulted in the discovery that the records that landed on spectators at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade were brought to the parade by a Nassau County Police Academy department employee. The employee has not been named by investigators.
http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html
Confetti collected by spectators near 65th Street and Central Park West revealed arrest records, incident reports and personal information and that identified undercover officers. There was also information of Mitt Romney’s motorcade route to and from the final presidential debate at Hofstra University.
“There were phone numbers, addresses, Social Security number, bank account number and license plate numbers,” said Ethan Finkelstein of Manhattan who gathered up some of the confetti with friends. “And then we find all these incident reports from police.” The papers were shredded horizontally, not vertically, leaving text visible.
Nassau County Police are considering upgrading to cross cut shredders for future use. Paper documents can easily be used to commit identity theft, even more easily than computer documents.
This is not the first incident of inappropriate papers tossed from offices during a “ticker tape” parade. On Nov. 7, 2009, New York City office workers got carried away during the Yankees victory parade and began tossing files and documents out the window when they couldn’t get their hands on confetti.
An auditor found all sorts of personal financial documents in the mountains of shredded paper tossed from skyscrapers as the players rode up Broadway. Papers included pay stubs, personal financial information, trust fund balance sheets, banking data and even court files.
