Calif. Colleges to stop using Social Security numbers by 2007.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A new law designed to prevent identity theft is affecting California's community colleges, which are required between now and 2007 to eliminate the use of Social Security numbers as student identification numbers.

"It is low cost, but high staff time," said Mona Field, a trustee with the Los Angeles Community College District, which has nine colleges and 128,000 students. "We don't know how long it will take, but we fully expect to beat the deadline."

The law, authored by state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, expands an earlier 2001 identity theft prevention law to require state agencies, including colleges and universities, to stop using Social Security numbers as public identifiers. It is part of a sweeping, statewide trend to reduce identity theft by several measures, including requiring sworn statements to obtain certified copies of birth and death certificates.

Students had complained about having their Social Security numbers posted on bulletin boards with grade sheets, for example.

Initially, Bowen had proposed that colleges be required to make the changes by January 2004, as part of several changes designed to protect Californians from identity theft.

But the community-college system was able to negotiate an extension until 2007, after an analysis found the changeover could cost as much as $16 million, according to statewide Vice Chancellor Mary Gill.

Each of the state's 72 college districts has its own computer system and hardware, Colleges will still be required to keep student records by Social Security number internally, because the federal student financial aid system is based on the numbers, Gill said.

Therefore, to comply with the new law, colleges would need a computer system that lets them assign two different identifying numbers to students--one for internal records, and one for external use by the student, Gill said.

About one-quarter of the state's colleges would have difficulty with this, Gill said, because of antiquated hardware.

Overall, about half the state's community colleges have already made the changeover, based on their own local concerns about privacy, while one-quarter were already planning to change, Gill said.

"Our board passed a resolution before the law changed to move away from socials for IDs," Field said. "We did that on Dec. 18, 2002."

Under the law, the state's public colleges and universities are banned from publicly displaying or posting Social Security numbers, printing them on ID cards or badges, requiring people to transmit their numbers online--unless it is on a secure server--or mailing an envelope in which a Social Security number can be seen from the outside.

The extension will give the schools enough time to make the changes during regularly scheduled maintenance and upgrades, Gill said.

The statewide student management system, which records data about students and coursework, will continue to use Social Security numbers because they are not public information, according to Gill.

"As long as the federal government continues to use Social Security numbers for Financial aid, we will need to keep them in our system," Gill said.

Some colleges converted last year in anticipation of the law, including Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

"We had been using Social Security numbers as ID numbers for many years, but had also attached a special 'identifier' number to each student to be used within our computer system," said Jim Carnett, a spokesman for OCC. "The students weren't aware of that number--it was merely an internal means for identifying students. We have since converted those identifier numbers into official student ID numbers."