THE SPECTRUM VOL. 68 NO. 1 | JULY 2, 2018
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950
Data Trackers:
How UB uses student info Departments gather what students do, record habits with the UB Card BENJAMIN BLANCHET SENIOR FEATURES EDITOR
all the data. Campus Living has 24/7 access to dorm and apartment swipes and its administrators share these swipes with University Police, who use the information to search for missing persons. A few third parties — including the CBORD Group’s GET and Ticketmaster — have access to student data, but UB insists third parties don’t share or sell that data. UB does not give students the names of the dozens of people in over 25 departments who can see their data, nor would UB provide those names to The Spectrum. The departments include academic departments like social work, engineering and psychology, and broader departments like Campus Living and Parking and Transportation. “Personally, I don’t think departments are
TOP 10 STORIES OF 201718 AT UB
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UB can track your location every time you swipe your UB Card. Card readers across campus track when you eat dinner, go home and ride the bus. The card registers when you get Moe’s and if you are a loyal Bulls fan. All your swipes are recorded and some departments share your habits with people outside of UB. For example, if you go to football games and swipe into your dorm, Athletics might advertise future events in your building. UB insists the UB Card is not a system for gathering, packaging and selling personal data. But, a twomonth investigation by The Spectrum shows reams of student data is collected, researched and kept throughout UB and that students have little idea who has their data and when it gets collected. MADISON MEYER | THE SPECTRUM Many students After students use their card on a reader, data is gathered by individual departments. Students The Spectrum who want their card access data have to contact spoke to are con- each department and some departments choose not to release data to students. cerned about this lack of transparency with their data. Their concerns come doing a good - Andy Cruz, an undecided three months after Facebook admitted to sell- job of informfreshman people ing the personal data of 87 million users and ing one month after Amazon’s Alexa — a device who has their widely used by students — recorded and sent information, out the private conversation of a Portland because no student really has a solid answer,” Syed said. couple. “Overall, I would say I’m concerned with what happens when we use our cards and who could see it,” said Sana Syed, a sophomore political science major. “If I heard more clarity and a logical explanation from the school as to why they need [to use] this information, I would feel a lot better.” Each of the departments set “their own Finding out about UB data collection is not regulations” for the UB Card, according to easy. The Spectrum filed Freedom of Informathe UB Card policy statement. The Spectrum tion requests to get data on one of our ediasked four different departments for their tors, but only got some answers about what policies, but got no answers. Departments UB collects. We asked dozens of staff and were either unable or unwilling to tell us their only some have shared how they use student policies. data. Kate McKenna, director of issues manPart of the problem is that UB does not agement and stakeholder communication, have a centralized office that manages all data said UB has policies to protect student data on students. This means one student’s data and that most data stays within the university. can not be seen by one department or UB McKenna said there are “only a few instancemployee. But it also makes tracking who is es” where data is shared outside UB but “sencollecting what tricky. sitive information is never shared” or “sold.” At least 25 departments and UB offices Third parties like GET collect student card collect student data, but only select admintransactions, according to McKenna, but data istrators, including President Satish Tripathi remains “completely confidential” and GET and Provost Charles Zukoski, have access to
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They may know what that third party is doing with my data, but I don’t know what they’re doing with my data. It would be [good] if UB could break it down more for me, so I’m more aware of where it’s going and who has access.”
Who’s looking at your data?
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