Teen Database Worries Critics

Privacy Advocates Protest Pentagon's Youth Recruiting File System

(AP)  It also includes a list of people who do not want to be contacted by the military for recruitment purposes, officials said.

The military obtains this information from several sources: individuals who volunteer it, state motor vehicle departments, commercial information brokers and the Selective Service system. The records are supposed to be destroyed five years after they are gathered, the military says.

Military officials said they have about 30 million names in this database. Chu said the services have been required by law to keep such information for recruiting purposes for at least 23 years.

Chu said later that the Social Security number is scrambled before it enters the database so it remains a unique number useful to identify an individual, but not that person's actual Social Security number.

The arrangement has many problems, said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, a director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Hoofnagle was one of nine privacy advocates who filed a protest in the Federal Register notice.

For one, the military provides no guarantees it will not turn over the information to law enforcement, counterintelligence and other government agencies, Hoofnagle said in an interview. Krenke said the Pentagon does not do this; the Federal Register notice says the military retains the right to do so.

"Without your consent the Defense Department can take data out of the system and share it with other agencies," Hoofnagle said.

That the military buys some of its information from commercial vendors may violate the federal Privacy Act, Hoofnagle said. The government is required to contact an individual first to gather information before trying to obtain it from other outlets, he said.

Hoofnagle also raised concerns about BeNow's ability to safeguard the data, saying it would be safer if directly held by the government. A receptionist at BeNow referred all questions to the Pentagon.

The Pentagon office does not manage data the military services collect under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, officials said. A provision of this act requires school districts to provide military recruiters with student phone numbers and addresses or risk losing millions in federal education aid.

Parents or students 18 and over can "opt out" with a written request. Critics have challenged the measure on privacy grounds; others say it provides the military an unfair opportunity for the military to sway young minds.