The Privacy Commissioner is investigating an incident in which private information about 190 students was leaked at Baptist University (HKBU) this week.
The university said the information, relating to students who applied to Baptist under the Joint University Programmes Admissions System was mistakenly attached to an e-mail by a staff member.
The e-mail was sent to 95 of the 190 students. The leaked personal data included students' names, Jupas numbers, Hong Kong ID card numbers, gender, e-mail and mailing addresses, telephone numbers and internally calculated aggregate scores based on the results of the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination.
As Education Post went to press, the university had reached about 90 per cent of the 190 students by phone to apologise and ask the students to delete the computer files.
Andy Lee Shiu-chuen, vice-president (administration) and secretary of HKBU, said a staff member responsible for student recruitment 'erroneously attached' the personal data in e-mails while inviting students to an information session.
'HKBU apologises deeply for the incident,' Mr Lee said. He said a five-member investigation team, including himself and members of the academic registry and the personnel office, would study the incident and look at ways of improving the processing of personal data.
