Online college applications ought to be verified to ensure security

A student gives a goodbye kiss to his teacher at Maotanchang High School in Maotanchang town of Lu'an city, East China's Anhui province, June 4, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

After this year's National College entrance exam in Jiaozhou, East China's Shandong province, a student stole the password for a classmate's online college application account and changed the college the classmate was applying to. Beijing News commented on Thursday:

Fearing that a classmate who applied to the same university would pose a threat to his own application, a Shandong student stole the log-in details of his classmates' online application account and changed his classmate's choice of college.

In fact, many young people are yet to realize that it constitutes a serious crime to alter other people's college applications, and it is not uncommon for the college applications of students to be changed by someone else without their consent. But whoever does this, regardless of his or her intentions, should be held accountable, as it is against the law.

The system plays a key role in students' college applications, but only requires an applicant's exam registration number and password to log in. Such digital loopholes can be easily exploited. So basic background checks such as mobile messages and email verification should be introduced to keep willful intruders at bay and inform the genuine users of unauthorized accessing of their accounts.

The victims of such "hacking" should also be compensated properly according to the law and their reports dealt with in a timely manner. That requires the local education authorities and police launch joint investigations into the violation of students' education rights.

On their part, universities need to provide a "fast track" for qualified yet wronged candidates.