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Bradley Beach mayor refers possible misuse of municipal contact lists to IT after residents receive mass emails
Summary
Mayor Guboszi told council she has received complaints that a former borough official distributed mass emails using contact lists that may have been derived from municipal records; she asked IT staff to investigate and referred the matter to council for review.
Mayor Guboszi opened the Bradley Beach Borough Council meeting by describing complaints from residents who received mass emails that, based on available information, may have been distributed using municipal contact information without authorization. She said the administration did not provide access to borough email distribution lists for those communications and has asked the borough’s information-technology staff to determine whether borough data or systems were involved.
The mayor said the public gives contact information to the borough to receive information about services and programs and that the borough must safeguard that information and use it only for legitimate governmental purposes consistent with law and residents’ expectations. She said the concern is not the viewpoints expressed in the emails but whether contact data were used in a way that was unauthorized.
Councilmembers agreed to review the matter. The mayor said the borough would pursue an internal IT review to see how any data may have been accessed and take appropriate steps to safeguard resident privacy. She encouraged residents to report unwanted emails and said the administration would consult legal counsel and the Department of Community Affairs as needed.
The council did not announce any specific disciplinary or legal steps at the meeting; the mayor said the matter had been referred to the council for further review and that staff would report back with findings from the IT review.
The council moved on to other agenda items, including a park improvement grant hearing and the municipal budget, and scheduled follow-up actions on the data-security review.
