At least 108 applicants to the University of California had
personal information, including their Social Security numbers,
displayed to other applicants due to a display error on a UC Web
site, university officials said Friday.
A second group of 2,048 applicants may have had their personal
information displayed to other students.
As of Sunday, university officials and Educational Testing
Services, the organization that helps the UC process applications,
were working to identify a potential third group of applicants
whose information may have been subject to the same error.
The university has sent letters to the 2,156 applicants in the
first and second groups notifying them of the mistake.
“The University of California takes very seriously our
responsibility to safeguard personal information entrusted to
us,” said Dennis Galligani, UC associate vice president for
student academic services, in a statement.
“We are very distressed about this situation and hope
students will accept our apologies for any concern this may have
caused them,” he said.
The display error occurred when applicants logged on to a Web
site that allows them to update their personal information. Some
applicants who logged in with their user name and password received
the personal information for a different applicant.
Personal information that may have been displayed included name,
address, date of birth; phone number; citizenship status; SAT or
ACT scores; and term, campus and majors to which the applicant
applied.
No financial information or any information related to an
admissions decision was revealed, and access to the Web site was
limited to UC applicants who had a valid user ID and password.
But parents of UC applicants were still upset by the matter,
especially because of the threat of identify theft.
“The fact of the matter is that here is a person who will
have an identity problem without having access to using their
identity. It’s a very frightening thing,” said J.R.
Longdon, the mother of Nathan Longdon, who applied to UCLA and UC
San Diego.
By law, the university is required to notify the 108 applicants
who had personal information displayed between Nov. 11, 2003 and
March 1. A parent of an applicant brought the problem to the
attention of the UC on March 1.
The university should know by today or Tuesday if additional
applicants had their personal information displayed, said Lavonne
Luquis, a spokeswoman for the UC Office of the President.
It is unclear why the display error occurred. ETS did not return
phone calls seeking comment on Sunday.
Longdon said she didn’t know to what degree the UC should
be held responsible for the display error.
“But they obviously have to go back to the beginning and
see how they handled this,” she said.
Concerned applicants in California can call (800) 523-2048
or (925) 808-2181 outside California for more information.