Damaged mail puts identity data at risk
- TAGS:Consumer Protection Board, Gmail, Long Islanders
- IT TOPICS:Security
OK fellow Long Islanders, if you or anyone you know attends Long Island University, you may already have heard about the defective mailers that were sent to over 25,000 students. They were sent to all of the university campuses.
The mailers sent out last week contained each student's annual 1098-T "Tuition Statement" and unfortunately weren't sealed with adhesive on all four sides. This led to about half of the envelopes being damaged over at the post office by their processing machines.
I know how I feel when I receive damaged mail (which thankfully, happens infrequently) and I'd certainly be angry if that mail contained information of a personal nature. The potential problem for the L.I.U. students is that those envelopes contained not only their names and address, but their social security numbers, as well.
I guess this type of mishap is just that - a problem that the university couldn't avoid. They did notify the state attorney general, the state Consumer Protection Board and the state Office of Cyber Security and they even notified three consumer credit reporting agencies about possible data exposure. They also re-mailed all the statements using mailers from a different supplier.
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