Registration Forms
Regulators said the problem stemmed from some firms and brokers including more information than they should have on registration forms. Some sensitive material reached the web because Finra’s filters failed to catch it.

As recently as January, dozens of profiles available on websites run by Finra included account numbers and other sensitive data, including in one online portal on the SEC’s website that lets people look up their investment advisers.

SEC spokesman Chris Carofine declined to comment.

Finra said it sent financial firms and professionals a reminder to enter only requested information, after Bloomberg News asked about the issue. The regulator also said it has stepped up reviews of data available through its BrokerCheck system.

Information Scrubbed
The moves appear to have had an impact. Almost all of the sensitive information available in files on brokers and advisers reviewed by Bloomberg since November have been scrubbed.

Some examples of data that were until recently available include: the name, address and account information of a Wisconsin church where a Scottrade broker was acting as treasurer; the account number for a trust on which a Morgan Stanley money manager was supposed to be serving; and the account information, name and address of the widowed mother-in-law of a Prudential Financial Inc. investment adviser.

While only a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of registered professionals appear to have been affected, there’s no easy way to fully search the data available in BrokerCheck. Information available on the web portals is also gathered by the states where brokers and investment advisers are licensed.

Joseph Brady, executive director of the North American Securities Administrators Association, urged filers to include private information only when it’s requested.

“We are concerned to hear of current and isolated instances in which some potentially sensitive information, such as account numbers, may be disclosed inadvertently,” he said. “NASAA continues its long-standing commitment with Finra and the SEC on efforts to mitigate any such instances.”

State Regulators
In a separate problem, state regulators inadvertently made hundreds of people’s Social Security Numbers available for multiple years until 2015, according to the whistle-blower.