The laptop -- stolen from a restricted area of a campus office -- contained the Social Security numbers of UC Berkeley students who received their doctorates from 1976 through 1999, graduate students enrolled at the university between fall 1989 and fall 2003 and graduate-school applicants between fall 2001 and spring 2004. Some graduate students in other years also were affected.
Forget sorting all this sensitive data on a friggin' laptop. Why the hell is Berkeley carrying around my Social Security number in the first place?
Why is it that US schools refuse to create student numbers? I never understood it; it annoyed me. My SSN is in my ex-department office; on all course lists; in the grad school office; in the health services offices, along with all my medical info (including the world's most intrusive and least relevant questionnaire) and my psych info.
I don't know anyone at a Canadian school who wasn't given a student number, usually where the first few numbers are the year you entered (so, when my mother returned for her MLIS in 2001, her student number was still 67xxxxx -- or maybe 68?) It's not that hard.
Posted by: wolfangel | March 29, 2005 at 07:45 PM