Maryland mom discovers vital info vanishes from Sex Offender Registry

Over the past several weeks if you looked at the Maryland Sex Offender Registry you might have missed something.

It’s here where anyone can find the details of men and women who have preyed on children. Several weeks ago, Annie Kenny, a mom raising her kids in Maryland, noticed something very odd when she landed on this website.

“Recently when I checked the website what I found was that although there was a space for scars and tattoos the information was listed as unavailable and there was no spot at all any more for work addresses or vehicle information,” says Annie Kenny.

Vital information that helps people identify sex offenders missing for weeks. Kenny did some research and discovered Maryland was in violation of state and federal guidelines.

“It’s really disturbing to think that an entire state's sex offender registry could be non-compliant with the U.S Department of Justice requirements. To me that’s pretty concerning,” says Kenny.

7 On Your Side did some digging and found out in April, Maryland joined 21 other states and switched its sex offender website to the Offender Watch. It allows law enforcement and public safety agencies to share and manage information in real-time.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services admits it was this Maryland mom who discovered the issues.

ALSO READ:Maryland mom calls for more restrictions on lifetime sex offenders.

It says: "The data was in fact present on the site however the vendor had a security rights issue and some information wasn’t visible to the public."

Here is the email from the Maryland Department of Public Safety :

In April, the State of Maryland joined 21 states in switching to the OffenderWatch system for its Sex Offender Registry. OffenderWatch allows multiple law enforcement and public safety agencies to share and manage information in real-time, while dramatically reducing the number of hours spent on administrative tasks related to the Registry.

The Department received a single constituent concern about a portion of a registrant’s data not being visible on the public site. The Department investigated and found that the problem was a data display issue. The data was in fact present on the site; however, because the vendor had a security rights issue, some data in the system was not visible to the public. At no time was any information lost.

The vendor corrected the issue several weeks ago. The Department's IT professionals have reviewed the system and found no further issues.

The Department believes the problem was an anomaly, and the Department has not received any other constituent concerns since that first call.

The Department considers OffenderWatch to be a vastly superior tool for the public to use when inquiring about registered sex offenders, a significant upgrade to the previous platform used to manage the Registry.

“I got to be honest with all of this it feels like nobody is paying attention,” says Kenny.

All the info that wasn’t visible you can now see on the site. It’s been fixed thanks to one very determined mom, Annie Kenny.