California’s leak of gun owner addresses and information is worse than previously thought

Last week, the California Department of Justice admitted that the personal information of hundreds of thousands of gun owners had been leaked online. Now, it appears the data breach was far wider than originally reported.

For about 24 hours, a data breach exposed the names, gender, race, birthdates, addresses, license plates, and criminal histories of Californians who had applied for permits to carry concealed weapons between 2011 and 2021. The news surfaced last week when the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said it had been made aware of the data breach.

However, originally, it had been reported that only the data of those who were granted permits was exposed. But it has now been revealed that the data breach affected all those that had applied, whether they were granted permits or denied.