Another Security Breach, Now At American

I wrote earlier this week about a story in The Hoya detailing the disappearance of two hard drives containing information on about 55% of the student body. Now this morning the Eagle newspaper at American University has a story about a box left in a hallway containing students’ social security numbers. In a hallway!

Quoting the Eagle about one of the documents found: “The top paper visible was a record of an AU alumnus’s student teaching experience during the fall 2001 semester. That form included the student’s full name as well as the student’s Social Security number…” The boxes have since been removed, but that seems like an egregious error on someone’s part over there.

Fortunately GW hasn’t had major breaches like this in recent years, but there always remains that possibility that staff members neglect protocol.

Update: Jeff made a good point (below) that there were two breaches in 2002 and 2003. In March 2002, confidential documents were found in a trash can near FSK Hall. Then in October 2003, The Hatchet discovered that students had access to a closet containing a plethora of student information. Thanks, Jeff.