SOKENDAI issued the following public apology on September 1:
We regret to inform that we have found the personal information appeared in the department chairs meeting materials was temporally accessible on the Internet.
The reason this occurred was that the meeting materials were uploaded to the wrong place in High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) server system and found by search engine web crawlers. KEK is one of our Inter-University Research Institutes for School of High Energy Accelerator Science consisting of three departments (Accelerator Science, Materials Structure Science, Particle and Nuclear Physics).
Regarding the personal information, the below edited data were shown in the meeting materials.
1) Data for selection/ change of the candidates for The Short-Stay Study Abroad Program
2) Data for determining 2011 Spring Enrolled students who received entrance fee exemption.
3) Data for determining 2011 Spring Enrolled students who received tuition fee exemption
4) Data for recommending applicants for JASSO scholarship
5) Data for recommending applicants to extend benefit period of MEXT scholarship for international studentsThe above mentioned data were accessible on the internet from June 13, 2011 to June 24, 2011 and were accessed 46 times.
6) Data to nominate the high performing students awarded JASSO scholarship for the 2010 exemption of refund
7) List of international students nominees for 2011 MEXT scholarshipThe above mentioned data 6) & 7) were accessible on the internet from April 6, 2011 to May 16, 2011 and were accessed twice.
8) Data for judgment of acceptance of international students to Sokendai (MEXT scholarship)
9) Data for judgment of acceptance of international students to Sokendai (Privately-financed)
10) Data for selection of applicants for 2011 admission to the School of High Energy Accelerator Science, SokendaiThe above mentioned data 8), 9) &10) were accessible on the internet from February 9, 2011 to February 28, 2011 and were accessed once.
11) Data for application of guests to 2010 Sokendai Academic Exchange Session
The above mentioned data 11) were accessible on the internet from December 7, 2010 to February 8, 2011 and were accessed 4 times.
Currently this meeting material file including personal information has been deleted and no cases have been reported of unfair use of the personal information.
We sent a letter of apology to the Sokendai students, graduates and applicants for 2011 admission whose personal data were written on the meeting materials.
We tried to control the personal information with extreme caution in accordance with our Privacy Policy, however, we extend our deepest regrets that this incident occurred.
We take this situation with utmost seriousness and from now on, we will strengthen the information control system of the personal information. To prevent this from happening again, we have enhanced setting up passwords to all meeting material files and furthermore we will discuss and implement the countermeasures at the Sokendai Privacy Policy Committee.
Naoyuki Takahata
President
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies
Impressive disclosure, although I wish they had indicated what specific types of personal information were indexed by search engines. How much financial information was exposed?