WESTBROOK – A new law calling for the collection of Social Security numbers of Maine public school students as a way to track student progress and evaluate educational programs is raising concerns about privacy and the possibility of identify theft.

The Westbrook School Department is complying with the law by notifying parents about it, but a letter sent home to parents also stresses that providing their child’s Social Security number is an optional choice.

“Parents are not required to provide a social security number,” the letter states. “If a parent does not provide a social security number for a student, the child will still be enrolled in the school. Every student has a right to a public education, regardless of whether or not a social security number is provided.”

The new state law, An Act to Improve the Ability of the Department of Education to Conduct Longitudinal Data Studies, was approved in 2009. It requires that school districts ask for the Social Security numbers of students.

Social Security numbers can help track student achievement because the numbers are considered unique identifiers that stay with students as they progress through school and into the workplace.

David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for the Maine Department of Education, said the department already has been tracking students through a student identification number given each public school student when entering school.

The numbers can be used in such ways as to help the state track movement of students from one district to another, Connerty-Marin said. Sometimes a student will enter one school district but not graduate from high school there. With the identification numbers, the state can tell whether that student moved to another district or simply dropped out of school, Connerty-Marin said.

But the school identification numbers don’t allow the state to see what happens with students after high school, when they go to college or enter the workforce. Only Social Security numbers allow that kind of tracking, he said.

He said that getting data about student progress beyond high school can help the state do such things as assess educational programs. For example, the state can measure how many students in a particular program go on to college.

“Wouldn’t you like as a parent to know which program is most effective?” Connerty-Marin said. “Wouldn’t you like as a school district to know which program is most effective?”

He said the Social Security numbers won’t be used to track students individually. Instead, Connerty-Marin said, the state would look at a whole group of students, perhaps 1,300 or so, in a certain educational program and look at what percentage of that group goes to college or joins the workforce.

He said the state won’t know that individual student “John Smith is making $38,000 or where John Smith is working.”

But the new law is raising privacy concerns.

Early last month, the Maine Civil Liberties Union sent letters to school boards across the state encouraging them to pass a resolution affirming students’ privacy rights.

“This is definitely a privacy issue. Even the most secure databases are susceptible to breaches,” said Brianna Twofoot, field director of the MCLU. “We feel parents must be informed about the risks of sharing Social Security numbers and about the benefits of keeping our most personal information private.”

She said that as of late August, school districts in Bethel, Biddeford, Brewer and School Administrative Districts 44 in Waterville and 58 in Salem Township had all adopted resolutions against the sharing of Social Security numbers. Other school districts were looking at such resolutions, she said.

“We have been getting calls across the state from school boards that are considering it,” Twofoot said.

Last month, Biddeford adopted a resolution that “respectfully requests that parents protect their child’s privacy by refusing to provide the school with their child’s Social Security number” and “ requests that the Maine Legislature rescind Public Law Chapter 448 at the next legislative session.”

In the resolution, Joanne Twomey, mayor and school committee chairwoman, wrote that government agencies, despite security precautions, are not immune to security breaches. In 2006, she noted, the Veterans Administration had a computer stolen that contained 26.5 million Social Security numbers. In 2008-2009, the Finance Authority of Maine inadvertently mailed Social Security numbers of some individuals on forms to the wrong recipients.

The Federal Trade Commission, according to Twomey, estimates that as many as 9 million individuals have their identity stolen every year, often times because of Social Security numbers falling into the wrong hands.

The federal Social Security Administration advised that many times children are targeted in identity theft because they have no credit history and it could take many years before they are aware their identity had been stolen.

In Gorham, Superintendent Ted Sharp has sent to parents a letter, which is also on the school district’s website, detailing the state’s plan and telling parents how they can submit students’ Social Security numbers if they wish to comply with the state’s plan. The letter states that compliance is voluntary, and that students will not be discriminated against for not providing the information.

In Westbrook, School Superintendent Reza Namin said that “while this new law is controversial due to concerns ranging from privacy to identity theft, the Westbrook School Department neither condones nor discourages the collection of Social Security numbers at this juncture, but is merely complying with the directive from the commissioner (for school districts to ask for the numbers).”

However, he said the Westbrook schools also wanted to stress in the letter sent home to parents that providing a Social Security number is optional and that “either way, their decision will have no impact on their child’s right to an education.”

In a letter sent to state school superintendents in August, the state education department recommended that districts include information for parents on their right to opt out.

At the Westbrook School Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 8, Namin was expected to discuss the letter the school department home sent to parents in August. Namin said he just wanted to update the school board on the issue. The meeting was scheduled to take place after the American Journal’s deadline.

Connerty-Marin acknowledged that no data collection system is 100 percent secure, but said the state education department has an “extremely secure system” for storing information.

He also noted that people give out their personal information in other instances. “We give out our Social Security numbers when needed because they’re needed,” he said. In this case, he said, providing the information “will help improve the educational system overall.”

Namin said he has yet to hear any feedback from Westbrook parents on the issue. Some have started returning forms, but he said he doesn’t have a count yet on how many parents are submitting the Social Security numbers and how many are declining.

Storage of any information parents provide to Westbrook will be stored securely, per a recommendation from lawyers for the Maine School Management Association, Namin said.