D.C. Agency Accidentally E-Mails Personal Data About College Financial Aid Applicants - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
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Karl Wabst on 12 May 09The D.C. agency that handles college financial aid requests said yesterday that it had accidentally e-mailed personal information from 2,400 student applicants to more than 1,000 of those applicants. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) said it has notified all students of the breach, which occurred when an employee of the agency's Higher Education Financial Services Program inadvertently attached an Excel spreadsheet to an e-mail. The information included student names, e-mail and home addresses, phone and Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The disclosure involved the "DC OneApp," an online application that allows D.C. students to apply for a series of grant programs. They include DCTAG, which provides awards of up to $10,000 toward the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at public four-year-colleges in the 50 states. The accidental disclosure went to about 1,250 DCTAG applicants, officials said. OSSE never publicly announced the breach, which occurred Wednesday. It did express regret for the incident in an e-mail sent to students and parents the next day. A parent made the e-mail available to The Washington Post over the weekend.