With a growing number of security breaches involving the U.S. government mishandling personal data, it seems one would become increasingly wary of entrusting government entities with any information of a sensitive nature.

Unless you are in Virginia and are trying to track sex offenders.

A Virginia law which goes into effect Saturday will require public and private colleges to submit the names and Social Security numbers of enrolling students to police for cross-checking against sex offender registries.

The Virginia law skirts federal prohibitions on disseminating student information by requiring colleges to turn over data after students have been accepted but before they have picked a school and enrolled. Advocates said it will help police track the whereabouts of those who have committed sex crimes and alert college authorities to the presence of such people among students. — Washington Post

The Department of Motor Vehicles will also be required to turn over personal information any time a Virginian applies for a driver license or updates information.

It is difficult to say much in defense of sex offenders, and those who make the national registries are, by definition, violent or likely to repeat their crimes. However, such a wide net cast to gain information raises other issues. By simply enrolling in a college or filling out a change of address form with the DMV, your information is turned over to police, checked against the central registry and stored. Security of personal data is one concern. What is going to be done with this information in the future is another.

Not a single lawmaker voted against this law. When asked about the provisions requiring student information to be turned over, lawmakers seemed to plead ignorance. “That should have been more closely scrutinized,” Virginia State Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said. Student data “shouldn’t be handed over willy-nilly like that. I don’t know how that slipped through,” he said.

Megan’s Law, signed by President Clinton on May 17, 1996, seeks to protect children from sex offenders by making communities aware of their whereabouts. This Virginia law is an offshoot of this: an attempt to locate offenders who are supposed to report their addresses but sometimes fail to do so. Tracking convicted criminals is one thing. Tracking innocent individuals is quite another.

And how well is Megan’s Law working? It didn’t protect the kindergartner in his school restroom, nor Jessica Lunsford, nor Jetseta Gage, nor Sarah Lunde. If tracking these individuals, whose histories and whereabouts were known, is not protecting children, why do we think more tracking will fix the problem? And why are we so willing to turn over our rights for such a negligible amount of security?