Metro Nashville Public Schools and the Tennessee Department of Education are working to notify parents and students that their personal information was inadvertently made available through an internet search engine, Google, due to a technical breach of a student data management system being tested by Public Consulting Group (PCG), a state contractor working for the State of Tennessee.

The names, addresses, dates of birth and full Social Security numbers of more than 18,000 students were available through Google searches beginning on December, 28, 2008. In some cases, the information also contained the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the student’s parents. PCG removed this information from their unsecured server on March 5, 2009. Though the information was removed from the unsecured server, it had been picked up by Google and was stored in a cache file where it remained available to the public.  MNPS only learned of the breach on March 30, 2009, when an MNPS employee came across a student's information. The district immediately contacted PCG, who removed the information from public access. A notification to Google was made March 30, and all information was removed from Google’s storage servers by March 31, 2009.

Metro Nashville Public Schools and the Tennessee Department of Education take this breach extremely seriously and have worked with Public Consulting Group to determine how this breach occurred, identify the students whose information was available and ensure such actions to not occur in the future. We would like to stress that the potential for misuse appears limited. Records show only four hits occurred while this information was available. Of those four hits, one was an MNPS employee.

Additionally, PCG has agreed to offer those affected one year of Family Secure, an online credit monitoring product at no cost to the students or their families. Family Securesm* is offered through Experian®, a leading national credit monitoring and identity protection company. If families choose to take advantage of this offer, the coverage includes:

• Students will be enrolled in a family protection program that includes notification if there is an existing credit report, monthly updates, assistance in resolving any misuse of information, $2 million Product Guarantee for certain identity theft expenses.

Each affected family will be sent a letter within the next ten days containing this information and a unique redemption code that has been assigned by Experian. Those wishing to enroll in this free coverage should call 1 (866) 252-0121or go online to http://partner.consumerinfo.com/PCGFAM

We regret that this breach has occurred and we are working with all parties involved to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to protect student and family personal information going forward. Anyone with questions or concerns, or those who need additional information regarding the coverage provided by PCH are encouraged to call the Metro Schools Customer Service Center at (615) 259-INFO (4636).

*Family Secure is offered by ConsumerInfo.com,Inc. an Experian company.