The University administration and the University Police Department are urging students to exercise caution when posting their personal information on social networking Web sites and online personal journals.
University Police wants to "warn students and make them aware that this information has been used in the past to threaten students and make them feel unsafe," University Police Sgt. Melissa Fielding said.
According to Dean of Students Penny Rue, serious incidents that have occurred at other colleges and universities, such as the murder of a Virginia Commonwealth University student, Taylor Marie Behl, and the possible connection between her murder and personal information posted on the Web have prompted University officials to try to educate students about the potential dangers of posting personal information.
"We're finding nationwide that there are incidents at colleges where people are posing as students," Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Lampkin said.
Incidents in which students are subjected to "stalking-like activity" and identity theft as a result of personal information posted in Web sites have been reported to the Office of the Dean of Students, Rue said. Although none are as serious as incidents reported from other schools, students who are not cautious about what they post on the Internet are still at risk.
"Anytime that you put personal information on the Web, you have to realize that anyone with access to the Web has access to your information," Fielding said. "Not everyone who has access to that information is well-intentioned."
According to Rue, if students want to protect themselves from threatening circumstances or identity theft, it is important that they do not include information such as home or work address, phone numbers, social security number, full name or class schedule on Web sites.
"Your favorite movie is one thing, but ways that people can contact you should be avoided," Rue said.
According to Lampkin, students do not only have a responsibility to ensure their own safety, but a responsibility to their larger community to be reasonable about what they write to other people via public forums or messaging services.
"People can upset communities by things that they think they are posting [privately] with each other," she said. "Let's all sit back and think about what we are doing."
Friendster.com, an online social networking service with over 21 million members, has acknowledged and attempted to address concerns with personal security by providing extensive account settings options, and by not displaying information such as e-mail addresses, physical addresses or phone numbers, Friendster.com Public Relations Spokesperson Jeff Roberto said.
Friendster.com does give users the option to customize their personal page, and whatever personal information they provide is up to their personal discretion, Roberto said.
"We've kind of seen it from both sides, so that's why we built all of the features," he said.
Lampkin said she has spoken to the facebook, one of the more popular college and high school online social networks, this week to look at how the University and the Web site can better educate students on how to protect themselves from threatening situations or identity theft, and to make it know to the facebook that these are indeed problems within the University.
"I think they have opened lines of communication to make sure that precautions are in place," Lampkin said.
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