Breach, Data Security

Data of 47K training to become Florida teachers exposed

The sensitive information of several thousand individuals training to become Florida teachers was inadvertently made available online by a university that was handling the data.

How many victims? 47,000.

What type of personal information? In some cases, names, Social Security numbers, and state teacher certification exam results.

What happened? When Florida State University (FSU), which stores information for those in the state's teacher preparation program, transferred program data between servers, it inadvertently made the information publicly available on the internet for two weeks beginning in late May.

FSU discovered the breach on June 11, and on Friday, the Florida Department of Education announced that the incident had occurred.

What was the response? Florida's Education Commissioner Tony Bennett ordered a review of Florida DOE's security procedures and also requested that all information stored or handled for DOE purposes be moved to servers the department can directly monitor.

Florida DOE will contact impacted individuals and has set up a hot line for those with questions.

Details: According to release from Florida DOE, an initial investigation indicated that the compromised data may have been accessed 23 times through Google searches.

Quote: “This is unacceptable,” Bennett said in a statement. “All Floridians deserve our unceasing protection of their personal information and must have confidence that it will never be exposed for the potential of illegal use."

Source: www.tallahassee.com, Florida Capitol Bureau, Teacher preparation data exposed online,” June 23, 2013. 

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