Defense department to create vast student database
Jun 26th, 2005From Inside Higher Ed …
Officials at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) have proposed the creation of a database containing information on virtually every college student in the country, as well as many high school students. Intended as a tool to aid recruitment efforts, the database would include names, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, ethnicities, grade point averages, and other data. The DoD's database bears similarities to another database proposed by the Department of Education. That database would track individual students through their college careers, providing a clearer picture of
graduation rates than current records, which track only aggregate rates from institutions. The Education Department's proposed database has drawn criticism from privacy advocates, who see it as a potential risk to privacy. The DoD proposal has similarly elicited complaints from groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). According to EPIC, the database would be a "bad idea," putting tools of direct marketers in the hands of government officials but without affording consumers the same protections from government that they enjoy from marketers.
