It only takes one wrong click and the information of many can be in the hands of a few who can do damage.

While this is a worst-case scenario, in mid-October, Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES), is starting a program to eliminate sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, from the computers of faculty and staff members, said Mike Corn, director of security services and information privacy.

“We want to minimize its use as a key identifier,” Corn said.

Corn said the Social Security Number Elimination Program will offer computer software to help people go through files and delete all Social Security numbers from their system. These files may be anything from old class rosters to forms for people receiving a grant.

“Having no sensitive material on computers lowers the risk of anything going wrong,” Corn said. “It is easy to send the wrong attachment or to post the wrong file.”

Corn said this program was not prompted by the events in August, when 700 students received an e-mail from the College of Engineering containing information about thousands of students.

While no Social Security numbers were leaked, the program was already slated to begin.

In 2000, a policy was enacted that required most departments to use University Identification Numbers instead of Social Security numbers to identify students, faculty and staff. Still, professors may have student information on their computers from before the policy was enacted.

Faculty and staff will have six weeks to delete the numbers. The software program will search the computer, looking for data that could be private information.

Once it is done searching, it will produce a list of documents and programs potentially containing the numbers. The staff member is responsible for deleting the information.

After the six weeks, department or unit heads will sign a compliance form, saying that their staff has removed the numbers.

Since the University now has its files in a digital format, the majority of the numbers will be removed from computers. However, the material archives, or paper records, still contain information, including Social Security numbers, about former students and staff members. Joanne Kaczmarek, archivist for Electronic Records, said these files are protected and cannot be seen by the general public.

While Social Security Numbers are no longer used by most departments, some continue to use them, such as the Office of Student Financial Aid and the Office of Business and Financial Services, which runs the University’s payroll.

“The Social Security Number is essential to working with the government and other agencies,” Dan Mann, financial aid director, said.

Mann said that for everything else not dealing with the government, students are identified by their University Identification Numbers.

CITES is working with the Office of the Chancellor to help complete this project,

“We think it’s vitally important to protect the personal data in the people of the University of Illinois community,” said Robin Kaler, University spokeswoman. “We are always looking at ways to do a better job with that.”