Students and Social Security Numbers
With the start of the academic year on university and college campuses, it is also the start of a fresh round of identity theft. The educational institutions are a source of data that identity thieves covet. There are several reasons for this. For example,
- students usually have not accumulated a poor credit history
- most students usually do not have a criminal record
- it will be some time before students make major purchases, like houses or cars, that require credit checks
Therefore, accessing student data is ideal. The goal is to link a name with a valid social security number. If a date of birth is available, then that is just an added bonus. Kim Komando has a recent article about some of the steps to safeguard one’s identity and financial history.
Students can check their university or college identification. In the past, the student identification number may have been a combination of social security number and year of first registration at the institution, for example. Many educational institutions have moved away from exposing social security numbers in that fashion. If your school still has a system that uses a similar method of identifying students, please be careful. That means that each time you use your student card, you are risking identity theft.
Educational institutions should be moving away from those identification paradigms and most schools have.
When a person registers with an academic institution, that school is entrusted with protecting the student’s personal confidential information. The student has to be proactive too. That social security number allows an identity thief to riches that you don’t have. Those ill-gotten gains will be accessed through your good name.
Catherine Forsythe
Tags: data of birth, identity theft, privacy, schools, security, social security number, students
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