Previous

U. of Virginia Will Create Virtual Tours of 5 Colonial Williamsburg Sites

Next

Internet Bans Greet Illegal File Sharers at Bowling Green State U.

October 22, 2008, 04:09 PM ET

Enforcement Delayed on Identity-Theft Regulations

University officials breathed a collective sigh of relief Wednesday as an official from the Federal Trade Commission announced in an Educause Webcast that new federal regulations requiring institutions to deal with the problem of identity theft would be delayed six months. The laws were scheduled to go into effect November 1.

Campus officials now have until May of next year to determine which portions of their universities will be affected by the new regulations — known as the Identity Theft Red Flags Rule and Notice of Address Discrepancy Rule — and to create programs to protect students and employees from identity theft.

During the Webcast, Naomi Lefkovitz, an attorney for the commission’s division of privacy and identity protection, explained that institutions would be required to comply if they were classified either as “financial institutions” or as “creditors.” Few colleges or universities will end up being considered financial institutions, she said, but every institution that “grants the right to defer payment” will be deemed a creditor. Colleges that allow students to use ID cards to pay for books and then bill the students later, for example, will be required to detect information-security red flags and develop procedures to respond to them, Ms. Lefkovitz said.

Slides from Ms. Lefkovitz’s presentation are available on Educause’s Web site.—David DeBolt

Categories: Security

Add Your Comment

Commenting is closed.