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Shredded Nassau County Police Documents Used As Confetti

MINEOLA, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Little strips of documents that were obviously shredded for a reason have ended up raining down from the windows in the city's ticker tape parades.

As 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon reported, this time, the Nassau County Police Department told 1010 WINS it has been looking into reports of shredded documents from its offices ending up as confetti at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Police said the documents included sensitive information such as Social Security numbers of personnel and police incident reports.

LISTEN: 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon Reports

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The department issued a statement saying it has launched an investigation and will be reviewing procedures for disposing of sensitive documents.

The shreds were not official parade confetti. Macy's said the only bits of paper it provides for the parade comes in colorful dot form, so if the shredded documents were tossed at the balloons and floats, someone brought them there.

This was not the first time that complaints have arisen over the use of sensitive documents for confetti. During the New York Giants Super Bowl Parade in February, some of the "confetti" dropped from office buildings was found to be paper containing personal information and records, including Social Security numbers and medical records.

That report came from the show Inside Edition, which said some papers even included information about a 54-year-old woman's mammogram -- all with specific details.

Do you think better safeguarding is needed for shredded documents so this does not happen? Leave your comments below...

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