Recently, a number of Hawaii Department of Education teachers have inquired about the migration of email accounts from Lotus Notes to Google (Gmail) accounts.
By now, most employees have had their email migrated over to a Google account.
A memo regarding this migration was sent out earlier this year.
Some teachers were concerned over their employee ID number appearing in their email address, and wondered whether others could utilize the number in a way that would expose their personal information.
We contacted the DOE to verify how and why employee ID numbers are being used, and were able to confirm the following:
There are several instances where an employee ID may be displayed in lieu of a name.
Existing Lotus Notes email messages that are migrated to the employee's new Google account will contain the employee ID. However, the name of the person will also be displayed in message header.
Example: Jane Doe <12345678@k12.hi.us>
This is necessary to ensure that each employee's messages are migrated to the correct person, and not a different person who has the same name. Once employees are solely sending and receiving messages through their new Google account, their name will be displayed instead.
Example: Jane Doe <jane.doe@k12.hi.us>
For calendar invitations that are sent from an employee's Google account, an employee's ID number will be displayed in the email notification for the invite. This is a default function of Google. The actual meeting invitation in the Google calendar will reflect an invitee's name, not ID.
Regarding the concern that access to one's employee number could be detrimental and result in some type of breach of identity or personal information, please be advised that while employee ID numbers are periodically visible, an employee ID number by itself is not private information and does not grant access to private information.