School officials in Fairfax County, Va., are working with local police to find out who's behind a Wikileaks copycat incident that has exposed the confidential transcripts of Fairfax High School students, Fairfax City Patch reports.
The information in question was posted Tuesday to Fairfax Underground, a forum site "designed to improve communication" among residents of the Virginia town. Someone under the username "Fairfax Leaks" attached a document to a post titled, "Leaked! Fairfax High School Report Cards from 2011-2012 School Year for Every Student!"
The document included student names, identification numbers and exam, quarter and final grades. Other personal information, like social security numbers and home addresses, was not released.
In a statement to Fairfax City Patch Thursday, FCPS spokesperson John Torre said the district is "prepared to take further action" if Fairfax Underground does not voluntarily take down the document, as federal law bars schools from releasing students' education records without parental or student consent.
"Violations of student privacy will not be tolerated and those who are responsible for this breach will be held accountable," Superintendent Jack Dale wrote in a message to parents Wednesday. "[But] we have no reason to believe that this incident poses any threat to your student and do not believe you need to take any action."
The incident in Fairfax comes just as Hatboro-Horsham School District in Pennsylvania closes a seven-month long investigation into a security breach that allowed a 17-year-old student to publicly expose GPA and class rank information at Hatboro-Horsham High School.
The student emailed the information to hundreds of other students. As a result, he was placed in the juvenile court system, PhillyBurbs.com reports. The teen was also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service and pay several thousand dollars in restitution to the district for the cost of the investigation. Officials deemed the incident a prank without malicious intent.
"Had the facts been different and the damage been different, it could have had a very significant effect on his life," Montgomery County district attorney Risa Ferman told CBS Philadelphia. "I think in the end we were able to resolve it in a way that made sense for the school, made sense for the juvenile, and make sense for law enforcement."
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