2007 Campus Technology Innovators: Protecting Personal Data
TECHNOLOGY AREA: PROTECTING PERSONAL DATA
Innovator: Louisiana State University
By offering free credit monitoring through Equifax, LSU
hopes to inoculate its campus community against the
ravages of identity theft
Like most of us, CIO Brian Voss and his colleagues at
Louisiana State University have become more and more
concerned as they've heard the growing reports of data
breaches suffered on college and university campuses. Thousands
of individuals have had their personal information placed
at risk in the course of campus breaches. These incidents have
contributed to the growing problem of identity theft, which of
course can have a severe impact on an individual's credit and
life. The affected universities not only bear the costs of notifying
individuals whose data may have been exposed (a process
that sometimes runs in the tens or hundreds of thousands of
dollars), but they also suffer from the resulting
negative publicity, which threatens their
administrative stability and can even cause
problems for development efforts such as
capital campaigns.
LSU’S ‘DON’T BE A TAD’
marketing campaign
educates students about
the perils of
phishing
scams and identity theft.
After watching other institutions
struggle with the aftermath of data
breaches, Voss and several IT
leaders at LSU decided it was time
to "inoculate" their campus community
members and try to shift the
focus away from reacting to breaches,
toward a proactive approach to
guarding community members from the
effects of a breach.
Addressing data security up
front. In the fall of 2006, LSU began
offering free credit monitoring to its faculty,
staff, and students. Voss and his
team worked with Equifax to develop a program to provide Equifax
credit-monitoring coverage campuswide, much
like a campus software licensing agreement.
LSU students, faculty, and staff now have the
option to enroll in a customized version of
Equifax credit monitoring for LSU community
members, which provides daily alerts on key
changes to Equifax credit files, and up to $2,500
in identity fraud expense coverage (with a $250 deductible).
To ensure that the service is only delivered
to members of the LSU community,
students, faculty, and staff are authenticated
via an existing tool called PAWS
(personal access web services), that is
built into the campus portal. Once
authenticated, users are connected to a
customized interface at the Equifax website
and given a choice of enrollment
options. Additional identity verification
by Equifax is required before users are
actually enrolled in the service, but the
overall process has been dramatically
streamlined by authenticating through
the campus portal.
The service lasts 12 months from the
time of enrollment, if sign-up takes place
within the year-long timeframe of the current
LSU-Equifax contract. But based
upon the initial success of the free credit-monitoring program
(more than 4,000 students, faculty, and staff members have
signed up so far), the university anticipates continuing and/or
enhancing the service over the next year, and will continue to
do so as long as the need exists.
Education is key. Voss admits that more education is necessary
to grow interest in the program. Many of LSU's 18- to 20-
year-old students do not have credit files yet; others do, but
don't realize it. The university is trying to overcome the sense of
"it can't happen to me." One campaign called "Don't Be a Tad"
chronicles how a fictional character, Tad Ramey, loses his identity
through a phishing scam and stolen laptop.
While the problem of identity/credit fraud due to data
breaches continues to grow—with no solution visible on the
horizon—national laws and other approaches may yet arise in
the near future. So, says Voss, other solutions could emerge
to make LSU's coverage unnecessary. But in the meantime,
the university will continue to inoculate its population against
the ravages of identity theft.
