US: The US department of education provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with information on hundreds of students who applied for financial aid over the past five years as part of the government's counter-terrorism efforts in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The programme, dubbed "Project Strike Back", focused on finding out whether suspected terrorists were using other students' identities to finance operations.
Under the scheme, which was created by the education department's office of inspector general, the FBI gave about 1,000 names to the department to crosscheck in its database of applicants for student financial aid.
The authority for the investigation has been in place for decades under an exemption in the Privacy Act, which authorises the release of personal data for purposes of a criminal investigation, according to Mary Mitchelson, counsel to the department of education's inspector general.
- (Financial Times service)