James H. Williams | Managing Editor
ORIGINAL STORY:
June 16, 2014
Riverside Community College District Interim Chancellor Irving G. Hendrick announced in a mass email to students within the district that an incident occurred May 30 regarding students personal information.
Hendrick stated in the email that the district had become aware of the incident June 2 and began an investigation.
In the letter, Hendrick stated that an email containing data files had been sent to an unknown email account.
The data file included:
- Student’s names
- Phone numbers
- Home addresses
- Email addresses
- Birth dates
- Social security numbers
- Student identification numbers
- Enrolled class information
A letter was also in the mail to students addressing the situation and providing steps to use a one-year membership of Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert credit monitoring service. The service is provided at no cost to students.
RCCD recommends that students check their WebAdvisor profile to review student enrollment and academic information. If students notice any unauthorized changes the district ask that they contact the Call Assistance Center for assistance at 1-888-266-9438, Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Hendrick stated the district will take additional steps to protect the information and prevent this type of incident from recurring.
“These steps include reassessing and enhancing security measures, reviewing policies and procedures for safeguarding student information, and re-enforcing best practices in secure data handling with our staff,” Hendrick said in the letter.
UPDATE:
June 17, 2014
A database with the information for a total of 35,212 students had been sent to an incorrect email.
The incident occurred when the email of a researcher, that the data was supposed to be sent to by a district staff member, had been mistyped.
It was also stated at the June 17 Board of Trustee’s meeting that the hotline, set up by the college to answer any questions students may have had, received 355 calls on the first day.
