According to a 4/15/2007 Washington Post article, student loan providers with access to a national student database have searched the personal and confidential information for tens of millions of student borrowers in ways that violate federal rules.

The questionable searches on the database have grown so considerable that the Education Department is considering a temporary shutdown of the service.

The database contains confidential and personal information for millions of students, including social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, loan balances and other financial information.

Source: Lenders Misusing Student Database.