Bits&PCs

Use of Social Security numbers as identifiers to be evaluated

Recently, a number of inadvertent disclosures of personal information have been reported across the country. These incidents call attention to the importance of safeguarding personal information for the entire Temple community.

As you know from previous announcements on this topic, Temple takes very seriously its obligation to safeguard the personal information of its students, employees, and patients. On Nov. 10, Chief Information Security Officer Ariel Silverstone issued a memo advising Temple employees who use computers or computer systems to review the University’s Social Security Number Usage Policy and Social Security Number Usage Procedure.

Silverstone also announced that the University had initiated a major project to eliminate the use of the Social Security number as the primary identifier in all University computer systems. He indicated that the first step in this project is to identify the computers and systems that store Social Security numbers and requested that faculty and staff follow a four-step plan to evaluate how they store personal information.

The memo is available on the Computer Services Web site at www.temple.edu/cs/security/ssn.html.

Faculty forum to focus on plagiarism software

Faculty are invited to stop by the Tuttleman Learning Center, room 209, on Thursday, Nov. 18, at noon to learn how to take advantage of the latest resources Temple offers to detect plagiarism. The event is sponsored by the Instructional Technologies Users Group, a forum where faculty members share their experiences about technology and learn about new developments. For further information on ITUG, visit www.temple.edu/cs/isc.