The personal financial information of as many as 5,000 college students were temporarily exposed for public access by other students on the Education Department’s direct loan website earlier this month.
The glitch occured over a six to seven minute window during which students could access and view other students’ information. This was while officials were making a reconfiguration involving 11.5 million borrowers, according to James Runcie, the Education Department’s federal student aid chief operating officer, who testified before a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee. This week’s testimony is part of a review of the Education Department’s transition to directly issuing all student loans. Congress changed the way student loans are issued last year with expectations that it would save $61 billion over the next decade.
The department was first alerted to the accident by students who logged on at the time and were concerned at seeing the personal details of other students. The department website was promptly shut down while the problem was resolved and students whose information was at risk of exposure have been notified and offered credit monitoring services. “We responded as quickly as we could,” he said.
Justin Hamilton, an Education Department spokesman, said in a statement that the department has no reason to believe students’ information was misused or accessed by anyone with “malicious intent.”