A watchdog Web site that monitors online disclosures of personal information has accused the University of Texas of making the private data of 2,500 students available online and easily accessible through a simple search on Yahoo.
The university said the Web site team, from SSNbreach.org, used sophisticated search methods unknown to lay people to find the personal information, The Daily Texan reported yesterday. So there was little risk of identity theft, officials said. But Aaron Titus, spokesman for SSNbreach.org, told the newspaper he was doing a routine search with Yahoo, using simple search terms such as “social security number,” when in January he stumbled upon 63 files posted by UT professors. The files contained 66 complete and 459 partial Social Security numbers, 17 dates of birth and more than a thousand addresses.
Mr. Titus notified the university of this information disclosure two weeks after his findings, but the center had already restricted the information 10 days earlier. This is the third time Mr. Titus found a lapse at UT.
The university, which told Mr. Titus in an email that there was “no evidence to indicate any malicious use” of the compromised personal information, only notified 41 students of the disclosure. The newspaper reports that Texas state law defines sensitive, personal information as certain data combinations, such as first name, last name and Social Security number. UT says that what Mr. Titus claims to be personal information “is not what the law requires to trigger a notification.”—Maria José Viñas
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