page break

Registry Aids Army

No Privacy for Students

There seem to be more leaks in the University Administration than in a sieve. Last year Salient exposed that students' enrolment photographs were freely available to the police and anybody else who cared to call. Recently National Military Service registration forms, liberated from the Labour Department, came into Salient's possession. They showed that the University Administration had been giving information about students to the Labour Department to assist their administration of Military Service.

Part of the OHMS campaign against conscription was to send in false registration forms to confuse the system. These forms, along with the odd genuine one, were processed and investigated by the Labour Department, who checked names and addresses, birthdates and occupations.

Many of the forms showed that the person supposedly registering was a student at Victoria University. With the help of the Registrar's Office the Labour Department checked whether or not the name on the form was on the University roll.

Last week when Salient asked the Registrar's Office if it ever gave information to government departments, an assistant registrar, Mr Keys, said that it was general policy not to give information to anybody "except when it was in the student's interest". In cases such as a death in the family, or where the Social Welfare Department needed to get in touch with a student over benefits, the Administration "pulled out all the stops". Mr Keys said he could not see how it could be of any help to a government department to know whether a person was on the university roll or not. But he implied that it would be a simple matter for the Labour Department, for instance, to check up with different faculties and individual departments.

Although a phone call from a Salient reporter requesting the address and phone number of a student produced the reply that "we are not allowed to divulge any information on students at all", students need to know that a definite policy exists and is being adhered to in every faculty and department, as well as the registry.

Salient demands that the Administration make a clear statement of policy in line with student demands that all information about persons on the university roll be utterly confidential.