Strengthening Privacy Protections for Our Graduate Community
Recently, we learned that an unaffiliated organization sent unsolicited emails to our graduates, prompting many of you to ask how your email addresses were obtained. We received concerns from multiple graduates from multiple classes and a few of our Class Presidents as well.
Connecting graduates with one another is a vital part of the Association of Graduates’ mission. To facilitate those connections, we provide Grad-to-Grad email access through two password-protected platforms: Find A Grad and Sallyport. Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are explicit that this access is intended for one-on-one communication and must be “used exclusively to support WPAOG’s mission.”
The use of graduate contact information for mass, unsolicited outreach is a direct violation of both the spirit and intent of these requirements. Such misuse undermines the trust graduates place in our community and in the Association’s stewardship of graduate information. We take this matter extremely seriously and have directly addressed this violation with the organization in question and are discussing additional actions with the Association’s counsel.
At the same time, we have strengthened the safeguards built into our platforms. We have updated Sallyport and Find A Grad so that graduates can initiate contact only through a blind, in-platform messaging feature; email addresses are no longer visible to other users— similar to the approach used by trusted community platforms such as LinkedIn.
Our commitment is twofold: to preserve the ability of graduates to connect with one another while taking every reasonable step to protect your privacy and the trust you place in the Association. We appreciate your questions, your vigilance, and your continued partnership as we work to strengthen these protections.
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