TOPEKA Kan.
Records discarded at the University of Kansas were mailed anonymously to three newspapers, prompting a campus investigation Wednesday. It was the second report in two months of such a breach of students’ privacy.
The records included what appeared to be graded exams, job applications, change-of-grade forms, class rosters, seating charts and copies of health insurance cards and immigration forms, according to editors at the newspapers. Some of the documents contained credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and student identification numbers, they said.
The records were mailed in manila envelopes, with a letter in each packet. Each letter said the papers had come from the university’s math department or its recycling center. The letter’s writers claimed to be former math teaching assistants or current employees of the recycling center, and they were critical of how the math department handled its records.
“Our No. 1 concern is protecting these individuals from any compounded exposure and launching an investigation,” university spokeswoman Lynn Bretz said.
Bretz also issued a statement asking news organizations that had received the documents to return them. She said doing so would protect patients’ privacy and allow the university to contact students whose records were mailed. Also, she said the university needed the documents as evidence in its investigation.
In July, The University Daily Kansan, the campus newspaper, reported that documents were left in vacant offices in Wescoe Hall, which was being renovated. The documents included graded exams, student essays and schedule-changing forms. Earlier this month, university officials announced a new program to improve the protection of private information.
