Pentagon Creating Student Database

[David]

AP


The Defense Department, faced with enlistment shortfalls, has reportedly begun assembling a database of young people as a recruiting aid.

The Washington Post reports the Pentagon is working with a private company to collect information on high school students ages 16-to-18 and all college students.

The database will be managed by BeNow Inc. of Wakefield, Mass. and will include birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

According to the official notice of the program as quoted in the paper, "The purpose of the system . . . is to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service."

Recruiters have already angered parents and some school districts by using available information to contact students at home based on some information on high school students already given to military recruiters in a separate program under provisions of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. The Post reports that school systems could lose federal funds if they don't give up the information, though students or parents could withhold data.

Additional data in the new system will be collected from commercial data brokers, state drivers' license records and other sources, including information already held by the military, the Post reports.

Privacy advocates tell the newspaper there are serious problem because the database will have a lot of personal information. They say it looks like the government is trying to evade restrictions on collecting such information by hiring private companies to do it.

"We support the U.S. armed forces, and understand that DoD faces serious challenges in recruiting for the military," the paper quoted a letter to the Pentagon by a coalition of privacy groups after notice of the program was published in the Federal Register a month ago. "But . . . the collection of this information is not consistent with the Privacy Act, which was passed by Congress to reduce the government's collection of personal information on Americans."

"Using multiple sources allows the compilation of a more complete list of eligible candidates to join the military," according to written statements provided by Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke to the Post. "This program is important because it helps bolster the effectiveness of all the services' recruiting and retention efforts."

The Pentagon's statements added that those who "opt out" of the system would have their information kept in a separate "suppression file." The pentagon says the file will be matched with the full database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish to be contacted are not, according to the paper.