UC Berkeley News
Press Release

UC Berkeley Press Release

Chancellor issues message on personal data security

– University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau has vowed in an open letter to the campus community that he will ensure UC Berkeley does all it can to safeguard personal data stored on campus computers.

"Our students, staff and alumni expect us to protect the information they have given us confidentially, and we have not maintained that trust .," wrote Birgeneau. "The campus has been instituting new policies to address these issues for several months, and we will do much more."

The e-mailed letter was sent late Monday (April 4) to all students, faculty, staff and many alumni. Birgeneau announced he will hire a leading data security management firm to conduct an audit of how the campus handles all personal information; provide more resources to ensure that UC Berkeley has the most advanced systems needed to protect all data; and move quickly to require the full encryption of all personal information stored on departmental computer systems.

View the full letter online at http://idalert.berkeley.edu/chancellorletter.html.

On March 28, UC Berkeley announced that police were investigating the theft of a campus laptop computer that contained files with the names and Social Security numbers of more than 98,000 individuals, mostly graduate students or applicants to the campus's graduate programs. That investigation remains under way.

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