Written by:
11/29/2010 10:45 AM 

Think back to your Junior year of high school.  In between football games, parties with friends, and an after-school job, you were probably applying to colleges.  You filled out form after form, sent in essays and test scores, and hoped someone—anyone—would accept you.

What you probably weren't thinking about is how safe your information would be once it reached its destination.  Even in today's culture of identity theft, you dutifully handed over your social security number, date of birth, parents' names,   blood type, shoe size, hobbies, likes, dislikes, name, rank, serial number.  But what happens to all that info after the accepted/rejected coin is flipped?

Ideally, the information is kept securely on file for a certain period of time—in academia, that's usually seven years—and then destroyed.  But we do not live in an infosec Utopia, and an unfortunate amount of sensitive data finds its way onto unsecure electronic media. 

Once you've earned that degree and joined the world of grown-up employment, someone might already have all the credentials to use your identity.  All they have to do is wait for you to establish your good credit and get some money stashed away and you'll be ripe for the picking.

What concerns me is that the information can be out there for years before someone notices and then it can be months or years before anyone is notified.  And by then, it is usually too late.

So what can be done?  Colleges and universities need to realize that the amount of secure info they collect on students makes them a likely target for data theft. They need to make information security one of their highest priorities, or they may lose credibility in the eyes of future potential applicants. 

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