College Takes Students’ SSI Numbers Off Forms

Concerns over exposing students to identity theft led Santa Barbara City College to stop using Social Security numbers on class rosters and other records.

After about 200 students were exposed to potential identity theft early this semester, the college switched to a system that uses only the last four digits of student Social Security numbers.

An instructor discovered on Aug. 30 that someone had ripped away the Social Security numbers from a course roster in his campus mailbox. In an apparently unrelated incident Sept. 6, an academic department chairman found that his briefcase, holding course rosters with student names and Social Security numbers, had been stolen from his car.