Administrative Experience
Question 2.7 Details

How does the campus educate students about and protect them from identity theft?

Identity theft is the disturbing and devastating practice of illegally accessing and stealing sensitive elements of a person's personal information, such as Social Security number or credit card account number, and using that information to perform financial or other transactions falsely under that person's name. A major reason for securing campus information networks is to prevent the identity theft of students, faculty, and staff.

Ask how the campus ensures against identify theft. What technologies are in place to protect the network and all the computers and servers connected to it? Does the campus use encryption software to scramble or encode data that moves through the network between where it is stored and persons authorized to access it? What protects internal computing resources from the outside world? Does the institution have a technical strategy for dealing with spyware? You can find additional information and resources at the Identify Theft Resource Center and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.