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University of Maryland mistake spreads Social Security numbers
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Related Topics: College Park
College Park (Map, News) - Social security numbers for more nearly 24,000 students at the University of Maryland were inadvertently printed on the mailing labels for a parking brochure, the Department of Transportation Services said in an email to students today.
"The University apologizes, and deeply regrets this unfortunate mistake. We are taking aggressive steps to ensure that this does not happen again. We strongly recommend that you take appropriate precautions to mask, black out, or destroy this document after use," said the email, signed by DOTS director David Allen.
The mistake was discovered on July 8 after the mailings were sent July 1. The department said in the email they were not aware of anyone's social security number being misused.
The university will offer free Equifax reports to affected students, at a cost to the university of about $23 a person, said vice president for student affairs Linda Clement. With Equifax, the students can monitor their credit or place a fraud alert on their account.
Clement explained that when a DOTS employee collected names and addresses for the brochure, social security numbers and email addresses would have appeared in the search, but were supposed to be removed from the labels. DOTS saw the email addresses on the labels but didn't identify the social security numbers because they were not separated by the typical two dashes, she said.
The incident is under investigation and the person involved has not been fired, Clement added. The delay in notifying students was due to the legal office negotiating a deal with Equifax.
"We sincerely regret it. This is just an awful situation, we're trying to do everything we can to mitigate it," Clement said.
A letter explaining the situation and offering remedies will be sent to students Friday or Saturday, said Ann Wylie, the university president's chief of staff.
"We were horribly upset that this happened," she said. "It was a human error."
Carrie.wells@baltimoreexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
5:06 PM MST on Tue., Jul. 22, 2008 re: "University of Maryland mistake spreads Social Security numbers"
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1:25 PM MST on Sat., Jul. 19, 2008
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Examiner Reader said:
I'm a UMD student and to tell the truth I didn't notice my SS number was even on the mailing until I received the e-mail. The idiot who wasresponsible for this should definitely be fired. UMD typically doesn't make these types of mistakes and this incident is very surprising. Just goes to show that all it takes is one goofball to screw 24,000 students. I don't think anyone will steal or even atempt to steal my identity (I'm dirt poor), but I probably will follow the suggestions anyways. Plus, how could I resist a free credit report :-)
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Observer said:
So the idiot responsible for sending out 24,000 student SSN's has not fired? How about they repay the $550,000 in taxpayer money that will be spend on "free" Equifax reports for the students whose SSN's were compromised?
3 agree | 0 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Interesting article on faculty salaries at UM-Baltimore. As a faculty member in the School of Medicine, I'm consistently impressed at how much lower our salaries are than what we could be drawing in private practice. For someone in my specialty, which requires a minimum of six additional years of training after Medical School, the starting salary is at least $60,000 less than a typical entry-level position in private practice. It takes a true love of academics to accept such a large discrepancy in income as compared to one's peers.
6 agree | 6 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
I'm headed to Maryland next year. This kind of behavior is really discouraging me from staying in a dorm. Not that I was looking forward to dorm life, but the freshman could at least help themselves out by keeping the rooms somewhat clean. The housing is very competitive here. I think Maryland should kick out freshman who disrespect the janitorial staff by violating their rooms. This would open up more rooms to those who are more deserving. Staying at a dorm on a campus is a priveledge. It should be taken away from violators.
6 agree | 7 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The future of America. Pretty sad.
8 agree | 5 disagree
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Boo Hoo said:
Disgusting. They should have had to scrub everything themselves with their toothbrushes. All the more reason not to go to school in this asinine state.
8 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Maybe they need their mothers to come in and help them.
8 agree | 5 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
slavery ended in the 1860's, why do we have to keep dredging it up, yes it happened, but we living now did not have a Damn thing to do with it, if you want to improve race relations quit bringing up the past, like small kids they see color and gender but have no problem playing together until we as adults bring up all the negative thoughts and words and then bang by the time they are teens they are rcistist and cruel, I've seen kids who played as friends now hate each other because of race, tell me who cusaed the hate from both, they didn't just decide over night to hate their best friend of years so leave things alone and let the people work things out instead of living in the past, there is too much in the future to worry about now!!!
11 agree | 7 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
for grad student, do not like the job, get a real one abd go to school at night, like i did.
7 agree | 8 disagree
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Grad student said:
I really don't see what the insulting and derogatory posts are in reference to. We are asking for the right to have a collective voice. Despite the fact that we contribute so much to the University, as it stands now we have no way to make the University listen to what we have to say. If the people who signed _your_ paycheck expected you to work 50% more hours than were in your contract with no extra pay, wouldn't _you_ like a way to complain effectively to your employer? Calling us lazy POSs and insulting our character hardly contributes to the discussion in a constructive manner.
7 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
as a graduate student of a few years and degrees at umd, it is clearly the case that grad students are stretched to their limits in order to operate as skilled labor while being paid near minimum wage. and as a grad over 30, there is no future expectation of 6 figure salaries to compensate taking loans to get by during the "graduate training" experience. kirwan's statement that we grads are students before employees is poorly constructed; we are equally if not more so employees than students, and you can be pretty damn sure that teaching and research in the university system would end as kirwan knows it if we grads had to leave our "student" posts because had to find an additional job to pay the rent, utility, and food bills. while unions may serve to protect apathetic workers, it is not too likely grads would slack, given we have a strong interest in the success of umd programs. i hope kirwan can excuse the 3 minutes this took to write, i'm now have to get back to analyzing this dat
11 agree | 8 disagree
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T.R. Deal said:
Giraffe is right, unions haven't done anything for the workforce in this country. Except for the 8 hour day...and the weekend...and minimum wages...and occupational safety and health regulations...and parental leave...and health/life insurance. The problems in the auto industry haven't been the unions (keep in mind that unionization was at its highest when Detroit was ruling the auto world); the problems are "free" trade sending manufacturing out of the country and poor planning on the part of GM (etc) decreasing their market share. I support the grad student's efforts and wish them luck in the future.
13 agree | 9 disagree
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Laura Moore said:
The previous comments demonstrate complete ignorance of how higher education works these days. This isn't the 50's when grad students were truly apprentices. This isn't the 50's. Universities have cut costs by using grad students as cheap labor. Oftentimes, our teaching and research assignments have nothing to do with our own research (that was the case with my teaching assignments). It's dishonest for the University to rely so heavily on our labor, but then say we're not employees. The best public grad schools in the country (Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, etc.) have unionized grad students. A few other points -- the average age of grad students is now 33. We're not kids, and workloads have increased tremendously for grad students so I'd hardly call us lazy.
11 agree | 8 disagree
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A giraffe dies said:
When you are too lazy to work, unionize. It's done wonders for the American auto industry. When tuition increases because grad students are getting paid higher, then the undergrads can unionize too!
44 agree | 48 disagree
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D said:
I agree!!!
47 agree | 40 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Just goes to show that just because you're educated does not mean you are smart. This is wrong on so many levels that it's difficult to begin. I'll just say that the operative word in "Graduate Students" is Students. You're in college to learn, and as grad students, part of that is to learn how to and actually do research (ie. conduct research for faculty) and to learn how to communicate the results of your research (teach classes to undergraduate students). If you can't afford rent, do what everyone else does, you lazy POS's, get a scholarship, student loan or second or third job. The latter gives you something else you are obviously lacking... character. No wonder America is going down the toilet, kids growing up now have had it easy and complain when they actually have to work for once. Disgusting!
43 agree | 58 disagree
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