Indentity theft risk: BGSU notifies past, current students about loss of personal information

6/27/2007
BLADE STAFF
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Bowling Green State University is notifying about 1,800 current and former students of accounting professor W. David Albrecht that his computer flash drive containing important student information has been lost.

The portable device contained Social Security numbers for 199 students from Mr. Albrecht s 1992 classes. In 1992, the university switched from Social Security numbers to unique university identification numbers. The flash drive contained these university identification numbers, names, and grades for about 1,600 other students since 1993.

The professor reported to university officials on May 30 that he had lost the flash drive.

Letters are being sent from the university to all Mr. Albrecht s students since 1992, encouraging affected students to take precautions to avoid identity theft and fraud.

Kim McBroom, associate vice president of marketing and communications, said the university does not believe that the flash drive has been stolen.

"We don t know that anybody else has picked it up," Ms. McBroom said. "It s not a security breach there s no hacking or anything like that involved."

The university is offering to buy a year s worth of identity theft prevention services for students whose Social Security numbers were on the flash drive.

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