University of Florida has achieved unwanted notoriety for their numerous data breaches over the last year, and the news presented to the university’s trustees yesterday can only worsen the school’s reputation.
UF Chief Privacy Officer Susan Blair told the trustees of incidences of identity theft that occurred in 2007, which she says were unrelated to the university’s data breaches. Rather, university police think a former human resources employee who used another person’s identity to obtain the job, which involved scanning UF employees’ into computer databases, committed the thefts.
In one of the cases, a university librarian’s information was used to apply for two student loans totaling $31,000. One of the loans was approved for $15,000; a second loan for $16,000 was denied when the fraud was discovered. Three other cases were related to medical records, including one in which the perpetrator used information from a patient at the university’s Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute to obtain 10 credit cards.
In addition, Blair outlined cases of medical identity theft in which identity thieves used other people’s identities to obtain medical care at the university.
Police are still investigating the identity theft incidents but believe the suspect impersonated a student to get the human resources job, which the suspect held for five months in 2006. That person was using the Social Security number of a Texas man born in 1979, rather than 1985 as the employee claimed.
Blair cited the large amounts of information the university has to maintain in student and employ files, and predicted there will continue to be data breaches and identity theft incidents.
“We are a natural target,” she said.
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Tags: Data breach, Identity Theft, Medical Identity Theft, Susan Blair, University of Florida
Her excuse that UF is a “natural target” is lame. What makes UF such a good target is their track record. At $9 a month, they should make LifeLock part of the general fee