Kassner, who recently spoke at a congressional hearing on updates to the HEA as related to Title IV fraud in distance education, said that college and university clients are quickly becoming alarmed at the implications of student identity fraud.
As noted by the OIG, online learning students can falsify not only FAFSA information (Social Security number, alien registration status, dependency status, income and assets) and GED or high school diploma information, but also steal other student identities for federal financial aid schemes.
According to the recent 2015 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy Research and LifeLock, students are three times higher than the average consumer to be victims of identity fraud. The study also reveals that students are four times more likely than other consumers to be victims of “familiar fraud” – fraud committed by someone they know. Students are also the least likely demographic to detect identity fraud themselves: 22 percent were notified that they had become a victim of identity fraud either by a debt collector or when they were denied for a credit card.
“This is bad news for colleges and universities who don’t have tech solutions in place that can accurately verify student identity,” explained Kassner.
Ultimately, an institution is responsible for the funding it receives for its students. And, even if an institution is found not to have known its distance learning students were using false identities, it’s still responsible for paying back those funds to the government—a potential setback in funding and accounting.
“Recently, we had an online university client who was extremely concerned about Title IV fraud,” said Kassner. “Even though the OIG mandates that schools have a process in place to verify that the student who registers in a distance education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and receives the academic credit, technology solutions to-date haven’t been keeping pace with the technology used by hackers…it’s no longer enough to verify IP and email addresses.”
To try and provide better student identity verification in compliance with the OIG and also the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA), ProctorU this week announced the launch of Ucard.
Ucard, which has been in beta with prominent online institutions (for example, Troy University), is an online student authentication service based on the traditional school ID card.
Seven institutions are already using Ucard in a variety of settings–from attendance tracking to managing financial aid disbursements–and have provided valuable input on the development and uses, said Kassner.
According to ProctorU, Ucard employs a multi-layered authentication process to check and verify a student’s identity in a matter of minutes. Via webcam, a live proctor sees the student and checks their government-issued ID, just like they would in person.
Then, using techniques based on what the company says is industry-leading fraud protection and banking standards, Ucard validates the student’s identity through a series of questions served through public data records.
According to the company, what makes Ucard effective at reducing identify fraud is their proprietary, “sophisticated keystroke analysis software” that adds the final layer of authentication to the stepped verification process designed to protect both the student and university from online and academic fraud.
The keystroke analysis software measures characteristics such as length of time to type a particular word or phrase and the length of time a key is pressed, among the many features of a person’s typing behavior. According to KeyTrac, a keystroke analysis company, on average only two people in 10,000 have very similar typing behavior on average.
ProctorU also recently signed the Student Privacy Pledge, which safeguards student privacy regarding the collection, maintenance and use of student personal information. “We signed this pledge because student privacy is a priority. In order to make certain that student information is protected, proper training is ensured in the usage of data gathered during the proctoring or identity verification process,” Kassner said.
More information about Ucard is available at the ProctorU website.
The OIG also recommends institutions modify disbursement rules for students participating exclusively in distance learning programs, which would immediately reduce the amount that fraud ring participants can receive. Schools also have the authority to:
- Delay disbursement of Title IV funds until the student has participated in the distance education program for a longer and more substantiated period of time.
- Make more frequent disbursements of Title IV funds so that not all of the payment period’s award is disbursed at the beginning of the period.
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