E-Mail Goof at Brigham Young U. Makes Student GPA’s and ID’s Public

Please don’t read that e-mail.

In fact, delete it.

Immediately.

That was the plea of a Brigham Young University dean after College of Humanities students found something unexpected in a mass e-mail: their classmates’ GPA’s and ID numbers.

“An employee in the College of Humanities inadvertently sent an e-mail to all students in the college,” said university spokesperson Carri Jenkins, according to BYU NewsNet.

But this wasn’t your usual oops-we-admitted-you-by-accident e-mail blooper (see the University of California at San Diego, Cornell University, and Northwestern University).

BYU students worried the information in the e-mail message, which was intended for the registrar’s office, could leave them vulnerable to identity theft.

Officials at the Utah university stressed that ID’s were generated internally and bore no relationship to Social Security numbers.

Still, could students commit any mischief with the ID numbers? Buy something in the campus bookstore, maybe? Or sign up for a class?

Here’s what John R. Rosenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, told students in an e-mail message he forwarded to The Chronicle: “We have no evidence that any information contained in the email can be used for identity theft or consumer fraud purposes.”

You can’t use the ID number to steal “Signature Card funds,” Mr. Rosenberg wrote, referring to a debit account tied to the university ID card that is accepted at most campus retail outlets.

With one sliver of wiggle room — “there is no method we are aware of” — Mr. Rosenberg also said you can’t use the info to harvest the password necessary to access “Route Y,” the secure online area where students can track their private academic and financial records.

Like campus leaders everywhere, Mr. Rosenberg spun the disaster into a teachable moment.

In an e-mail message to faculty, he called it “an opportunity for all of us to recommit to upmost care in handling student materials” and requested everyone view a video about the confidentiality of student records.—Marc Parry