Yonit Shames
Published: March 29 2006
Concerns about student privacy at the Student Center’s counseling area peaked yesterday when police confirmed that an identity theft ring has been stealing student information for use in vegetable farming brochures.
Chief of Police Geraldo Fordo said in a statement yesterday that as many as 20 victims have been targeted by the fraud ring in the past year, during which counselors have been advising students out in the open, where their conversations can be overheard.
Police suspect that the thieves sat near their victims while pretending to do homework; instead they were secretly listening to counseling sessions and shooting unsolicited photos of them with their lunch bags, Fordo said.
One possible victim, student Rudy Baga, 22, said that she began to suspect that her identity had been stolen when her aunt called her to ask her how much she had been paid to be on the new “Clever Idahoan” potato promotional material.
“My aunt is a potato farmer. She called me and told me that my picture was in this brochure, and that they even had information about my grades and my college goals next to picture of me holding my lunch bag,” said Baga.
The promotional material conveyed Clever Idahoan potatoes as the cause for Baga’s 3.9 grade point average and medical school aspirations.
Baga said that she saw a heavily made up female student sitting near her, listening intently to her counseling session.
“I just thought she was being nosy,” Baga said. “It looked like she was just using her camera phone to document all my darkest secrets. I should have known.”
Sources in the administration said that PJC students’ likenesses have also been popping up in zucchini advertisements, gherkin commercials and even, in one case, a radish bumper sticker.
Although senior administration officials declined to comment on the implications of the identity theft ring, head counselor Art T. Choke said that this will definitely force the relocation of the counseling center.
Choke said that several new locations are under consideration.
“We might just put everyone up on stage in the middle of campus and have students announce their disabilities and social security numbers, which would be very cost-efficient,” he said.