[August 12, 2011] Private student info made public Tweet Aug 10, 2011 (The Wilson Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Lori Quick of Wilson received three envelopes from N.C. State University this week in the mail. No, they weren't letters of acceptance or the latest batch of season football tickets. They were letters notifying Quick and her husband that the names, social security numbers and birth dates of their three children had been recently made available online. "I'm not happy about it," Quick said. "I probably never would have agreed to have them participate in the study if I had known their social security numbers were being used." Quick's three children were among 1,800 school children from Wilson and Richmond counties whose private information had been inadvertently posted online in the N.C. State University computer server. The data was gathered from 2003-2006 as part of a research study on classroom practices. "What's done is done," Quick said. "I guess we'll just have to make sure nothing happens to their credit as a result." The bulk of those affected students -- 1,500 -- are from the Wilson County Schools district. Approximately 990 Wells Elementary students and another 568 Gardners Elementary students had their names, social security numbers and dates of birth published online as a result. The remaining amount were from Ashley Chapel Elementary School in Richmond County. Keith Nichols, director of news and communications at NCSU, said this is the first time to his knowledge anything like this has happened involving their computer server. He has been employed at the university for more than seven years. The error was first detected July 25 by a parent in the process of conducting a Google search on their child's name. The parent contacted the Department of Public Instruction, which notified N.C. State. It is not clear how long the information had been available online at the time it was discovered late last month. "As soon as we learned this information was publicly available, we removed it from our servers and contacted Google to ensure removal of any saved copies," said Marc Hoit, vice chancellor for information technology. "Our next step was to launch a forensic review of all our servers to make sure there were no other instances of inadvertent data release." Hoit said there is no evidence that any of the data from the 2003 to 2006 study was used improperly. However, he encourages parents to remain vigilant and take additional precautions to warrant against the possibility of fraudulent use of identity information. The university has notified school superintendents of Richmond and Wilson counties about the situation. Letters detailing the matter and measures that can be taken to monitor students' credit ratings were mailed out Monday to parents. Quick received her three letters Tuesday afternoon. It could take longer for others to receive theirs. "Because the information was gathered several years ago, it was difficult to obtain parents' current contact information," Hoit said. "For example, Ashley Chapel Elementary has (since) been closed." At the time the study was conducted, a small number of school systems still used social security numbers as student identification numbers. All North Carolina public schools now use randomly generated personal identification numbers provided by the state's student information system, known as NC Wise. The university discontinued use of all social security numbers as personal identifiers in 2004. Parents who receive a letter or believe their child was part of the study at Ashley Chapel Elementary in Richmond County, and Gardners and Wells elementary schools in Wilson County from 2003-2006, are asked to take a proactive stance in the prevention of identify theft by reviewing account statements and monitoring free credit reports available from Equifax, Experian or TransUnion. To obtain further information about preventing identity theft, contact the Federal Trade Commission at 877-382-4357 or www.ftc.org, or the North Carolina Attorney General's Office at 919-716-6400 or www.ncdoj.gov. [email protected] -- 265-7878 To see more of The Wilson Daily Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wilsondaily.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Wilson Daily Times, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]