Students, Security and Identity Theft
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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
One Comment
Rick
August 29th, 2008
at 7:29am
You pointed out good reasons for why students are a coveted target for identity thieves, and reasons why the institutions they attend are many times a cause of the vulnerability of student data. I think the ’student factor’ needs to be addressed as well.
Many students have little or no real-world life experience. Many have been sheltered and provided for by their parents for most or all of their lives. This makes them exceptionally vulnerable to a plethora of scams and cons, from political and religious organization membership pushes, peer pressure causing them to do all kinds of ‘whacky’ anti-social activities which later will be regretted, and just outright gullibility because of lacking that valuable experience.
The best advice I can provide for students just starting to be exposed to the realities of life: don’t take what is said to you, what you read, or what you hear at face value. Skepticism is a very healthy trait to cultivate. Step back from what is presented to you and take the time to research it. The con is relying on you making an instant decision based on emotion since you lack the experience to make an informed decision.
There are ALWAYS at least two sides to any situation. Seek them out, then research and understand what each side is about. Often, what you want (desire) is based only on emotion or anecdotal information provided by peers, who are often no more informed than you are. Desires demand instant gratification, but determining what is best for you requires time and knowledge.