Pentagon Agrees To Protect Privacy In Database of Potential Recruits

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 -- The Defense Department has agreed to change a military-recruitment database to better protect the privacy of millions of high school students nationwide, a civil liberties group announced Tuesday.

To settle a lawsuit brought last year by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the government agreed to no longer disseminate student information to law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies and to stop collecting student Social Security numbers.

The Pentagon also agreed to limit to three years the time it retains student information and to clarify procedures by which students can block the military from entering information about them in its database.

Last year's lawsuit claimed the department was flouting a 1982 military-recruitment law. Military officials have said they have about 30 million names in the database. The Pentagon said in 2005 that the list includes high school students 16 to 18 years old as well as college students and includes such information as the students' Social Security numbers, sex and race.