Dallas ends practice of criminals shredding sensitive records.

• Position: PRIVACY - Brief article

For more than a decade, Dallas County criminals have been shredding sensitive documents almost daily at a run-down warehouse. The community service program just came to an end after a local news station started asking questions.

According to News 8, the program worked like this: parolees and probationers worked off community service hours by destroying thousands of confidential documents, including psychiatric exams of juveniles, copies of Social Security cards, birth certificates, court records, drug tests, and even medical records. Many were marked "confidential."

Dallas County ordered the documents to be destroyed, in keeping with its records retention policy. But neither the public nor many high-ranking county officials were aware that convicted criminals were handling the information, leaving the county open to lawsuits if the information had been misused or fines for violating federal privacy laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, experts say.

Dallas County noted that the probationers and parolees are supervised whenever they are around the...