It finally happened. The office which is in charge of Student Loan information mistakenly sent private information out to over 1250 applicants via an email. A horrific mistake was made by the Washington DC agency which handles financial aid requests and it did not make a public apology. It merely contacted the recipients and asked them to destroy the email attachment and forget they ever saw it.
And what was it? The email had an excel sheet attachment which contained the students' names , email addresses and home addresses, phone numbers, Social Security Numbers and dates of birth! That is all the information you need to apply for a credit card or a bank loan in someone else’s name: better known as identity theft.
Of course the students and parents are livid and some of the recipients had already been told that they did not qualify for financial aid due to their parent’s earning power. Another blow! The agency did not contact the news sources. A parent of one of the students sent the emails to the Washington Post over the weekend.
The agency is looking at better ways to shorten the SSN on any excel sheets so that this information is never again dispersed to the public. I would also hope that the person who did this email malfunction was properly chastised and brought down a peg or two. To give out personal facts is damaging to anyone’s credit and economic forecast never mind their piece of mind. But students have not even gotten into the playing field yet; they don’t usually have a credit card or a car loan paid off or a stab at their student loans.
Let’s rule that agencies of any personal information have to double check their facts and emails before they are sent out!