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“Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities soon will be required to submit the names and Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of students they accept each year to state police for cross-checking against sexual offender registries.

“The little-noticed but groundbreaking law is raising concerns among privacy experts about giving police access to a vast new database of student information. They say the data could be stored permanently on hard drives and mishandled, stolen or used for unrelated homeland security or law enforcement purposes.

“Passed this year as part of a crackdown on sex crimes and signed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the law also requires Department of Motor Vehicles officials to turn over personal information to police any time a Virginian applies for a license or change of address. It goes into effect July 1.”

Michael D. Shear and Rosalind S. Helderman. Police to Receive Student Data for Checks Against Offender List. WashingtonPost.com. June 20, 2006.

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