Just when a college thinks it has eliminated the ubiquitous Social Security number as a student identifier, those persistent nine digits have a nasty habit of cropping up again. Case in point is a community college in Binghamton, N.Y. that eliminated the social five years ago. Yet, in a recent mailing of its quarterly alumni magazine, the social was printed on the back cover of as many as 14,000 publications.

Broome Community College abandoned the use of Social Security numbers as student identification numbers in 2004, but the office of alumni affairs was utilizing a new system that used the old student identification numbers to verify addresses. The school has now crafted a new method to verify addresses.

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