The University of Alabama student paper (The Crimson White) April 19, 2002
The last SGA, like so many of us around test time, got a lot of its best work done at the last minute. The 2001-02 Senate passed one of its most important bills just weeks before leaving office.
Resolution 53-01, authored by former graduate school senator John Woodruff and sponsored by 2001-02 Sens. Aubrey Collins and Mario Bailey, asks the University to stop the practice of assigning student identification numbers identical to students’ Social Security numbers.
The Social Security number, originally intended for use only by the Social Security Administration when the program started, has become a sort of de facto national identification number. Its ubiquity makes it an easy choice for the University to use as the student identification number, but it also makes it an easy target for people who would use someone else’s student ID number for illegitimate purposes. Identity theft has become an increasingly pervasive problem as computer-based systems relying on Social Security numbers to identify people have been implemented in recent years.
The solution here is simple – a slight modification to the University’s computer systems would match students’ Social Security numbers (still needed for financial aid purposes) to randomly assigned ID numbers. The new, random ID would be the number used around campus. The company in charge of the University’s system has promised to make such a fix available in late 2002. The costs of doing this are almost none, and the benefits — improved identity security — are substantial.
The Senate that passed the resolution won’t be able to push for it to become University policy, though. One of the new SGA’s first priorities should be staying in the administration’s ear about making this change.