Midway Staff
During the summer, certain members of the Class of 2023 received the high school transcripts of their peers due to an unintentional security leak.
After saying their goodbyes to U-High at the end of the year, certain members of the Class of 2023 received the high school transcripts of their peers due to an unintentional security leak.
The administration sent a message to the students who had received the transcripts asking them to delete the emails and attachments, and sent an apology letter to the families of the graduating class.
Sarah Arehart, Laboratory Schools registrar, said the incident was caused by human error, and she understands frustration regarding the incident.
“A transcript is a private document,” Ms. Arehart said. “It covers your academic journey, and sharing that information with anybody else, without permission, is always difficult. We take student privacy seriously when it comes to data management.”
Brian Hewlett, director of information and registrar services, said that months before the accident happened, staff in the registrar’s office were already exploring ways to improve the system.
Last school year, the staff discovered Parchment, a third-party platform for safe and secure documentation flow used by the University of Chicago. Parchment was not used during the incident, and the platform is still being arranged for use later this school year.
Ms. Arehart said she is hopeful that a system like Parchment will prevent a future similar error.
“I think the implementation of Parchment is evidence that we already had student privacy on our minds,” Ms. Arehart said. “It’s part of a larger shift that we are making in order to make sure that those digital records are all secure.”