Education Department officials acknowledged on Wednesday that the agency had inadvertently exposed on its Web site this week the personal data of as many as 32,000 borrowers of direct student loans as a result of a software glitch, the Associated Press reported.

Terri S. Shaw, chief operating officer of the department’s Federal Student Aid Office, said that a software upgrade to its online system for managing direct student loans accidentally mixed up the data for different borrowers and allowed some individuals to view others’ personal information, such as Social Security numbers.

The glitch affected borrowers who logged on to the online system from Sunday night to Tuesday morning (The Chronicle, August 23), but only about two dozen borrowers have complained so far.

Ms. Shaw said that the department would contact all those who were potentially affected and offer them free credit monitoring from Affiliated Computer Services, the Dallas contractor that performed the software upgrade.