IF I were an identity thief, I would not have to lift a finger to target my next victim. Last Wednesday, I sat beside a woman at a computer terminal at the library who was on the phone regarding an ISIS problem, walked past my roommate who was ordering from Dominos and came upon a list of individuals who did not bring their IDs outside the Newcomb Dining room. I was able to overhear or see seven or eight Social Security numbers in one day alone.
Previous columns written about Social Security numbers have all come to the same conclusion: the University will complete a Student Systems Project that will be operational in 2010 and will not use Social Security numbers as the primary identifier. The University is also taking short term measures to address the problem, one of which eliminates Social Security numbers from Toolkit. No one has taken the University to task for not specifying exactly what the interim measures and reforms will include, how effective they may be, and when exactly they will be in place. The University must be held responsible for the timing and specificity of interim measures in a field as important as protecting students' personal information.
When analyzed thoroughly, the University's attempts to develop interim reforms seem well-intentioned but fall short of expectations. A case in point is the University's complete elimination of Social Security numbers from Toolkit. While this may indeed prevent technical errors from occurring, it does not address other Toolkit and grade related areas involving Social Security numbers. For instance, last semester a TA from an economics class accidentally e-mailed the wrong grade list to his discussion section with students' names, grades and Social Security numbers.
It is a mystery to me why full Social Security numbers are even sent out to professors or TAs at all, be they for grading, attendance or administrative matters. As long as there is even a partial use of Social Security numbers by professors and TAs, there will be a chance of human error.
The University should follow up its earlier measure of eliminating Social Security numbers from Toolkit and for grading by providing only the last four or five digits of Social Security numbers for professors to use. Since it will not involve an alternate form of identification which might require a massive system change, all administrators and professors will have to do is to only use the last four or five digit numbers for any purpose.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of primary identifier reform at the University is that there is currently no viable alternative for proactive students to reduce or prevent the threat from human or technical errors. As has been suggested in previous columns, students can always attempt to change their identification number for basic services like the library and dining into some other number besides their Social Security numbers at Caruthers Hall. The catch, however, is that this complicates the allocation and monitoring process for federal financial aid that most students receive.
The University continues to drag its feet on the crucial issue of viable alternatives. If one checks The Cavalier Daily's Web site to find out when the first proposal for reform was proposed to the University, it was almost six years ago. It is unclear to me how a fundamental matter of security has been left unaddressed for so long by an institution that is well-funded, well-established, and claims to be fully serving student needs.
The administration's responses to questions about the speed, coverage and effectiveness of its reforms are long on rhetoric and short on time-specific, concrete measures. With regard to the limited scope of current reform, for instance, Shirley Payne, director of security coordination and policy at the Office of Information Technology and Communications, said, "We are working on a better solution." In response to the lack of viable alternatives, James Hilton, ITC vice president and chief information officer, commented, "We are working to accomplish a new student number well in advance of the implementation of the new student information system."
Given the past six years of delay on the issue, the University should immediately issue a specific timeline on what measures will be accomplished and when they will be completed. While University officials seem sympathetic to student security needs, the 83 percent of students who decry the current primary identifier system must at least be accorded a concrete sense of reform. After six years of demanding reform, students at least deserve to know what specific measures will be in place and when exactly they will occur.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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