OPSEC Advisory: Minnesota State People Search Exposes Personal Information at Scale

State-level public records systems were designed for transparency and civic access. They’re being used as reconnaissance tools.

Minnesota’s people search and public records databases make personal information — names, addresses, property ownership, court records, voter registration data — accessible through simple web queries. This isn’t a breach. This isn’t a vulnerability. This is the system working as designed. And that’s the problem.

What’s Exposed

Minnesota’s publicly accessible records include voter registration files with names, addresses, and dates of birth. Property records linking individuals to specific addresses. Court records including case filings and outcomes. Business registration records identifying officers and registered agents. And vehicle registration data in certain contexts.

Individually, each record is a mundane piece of civic data. Aggregated, they’re a targeting package.

A motivated actor can use Minnesota’s public records to confirm a target’s home address through property records, verify their identity through voter registration, identify their business interests through corporate filings, and cross-reference court records for financial or legal vulnerabilities. All of it legal. All of it free. All of it available from a state government website.

Why This Is an OPSEC Problem

For most citizens, public records exposure is an abstract privacy concern. For specific populations, it’s an active threat.

Law enforcement officers whose home addresses are discoverable through property records face personal safety risks from individuals they’ve arrested or investigated. Domestic violence survivors who’ve relocated can be located through voter registration or property records. Executives and public figures whose addresses are exposed become targets for protest activity, stalking, or physical threats. Government employees in sensitive positions whose personal details are publicly indexed face risks from foreign intelligence services and domestic threat actors.

The Aggregation Effect

The real danger isn’t any single record. It’s the ease with which multiple records can be combined to build a comprehensive profile. A name from one database, matched to an address from another, cross-referenced with a court record from a third — this aggregation happens in minutes and produces intelligence that used to require professional investigation resources to compile.

Data broker sites have already automated this aggregation. They pull from state records, combine with commercial databases, and sell the resulting profiles. But even without data brokers, the raw state records are sufficient for someone willing to spend an hour searching.

What Security Teams Should Do

Assess your exposure. For any personnel operating in Minnesota — or any state with similar public records accessibility — run a search of their names through the state’s public records systems. Document what’s discoverable.

Implement address protection where available. Some states offer address confidentiality programs for law enforcement, domestic violence survivors, and other at-risk populations. Determine whether your personnel qualify for any applicable protections.

Monitor for changes. Public records update when property changes hands, voter registration is updated, or new court filings appear. Continuous monitoring catches these changes before threat actors discover them.

Brief affected personnel. Individuals whose personal information is publicly accessible should understand the exposure and adjust their personal security practices accordingly — particularly around physical security, mail security, and online account recovery settings that may rely on information available in public records.

Factor public records into threat assessments. When evaluating threats against specific individuals, include publicly accessible records as an input. An individual whose home address is easily discoverable has a different risk profile than one whose address is protected.

This advisory isn’t specific to Minnesota. Every state maintains public records with varying levels of accessibility. Minnesota is highlighted because its online search tools make aggregation particularly straightforward. But the underlying OPSEC problem — personal information exposed through legitimate government databases — applies everywhere.

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