The information breach exposed the names and diagnoses of children and teenagers being treated for such conditions as schizophrenia, retardation and depression.

The University of Montana Web site put psychological and other personal information of some 60 children and teenagers online last week when the sensitive data was inadvertently loaded onto a Web server. The university's psychology department mistakenly uploaded 126 files -- containing patients' names, ages, addresses, visit descriptions and diagnoses -- to the UM Web server instead of to a specialized server that faculty uses to share research, according to Ray Ford, University of Montana chief information officer. Ford told NewsFactor Network that because the information was placed on the Web server, it was automatically indexed in the Web site's search engine. The information was uploaded on October 26th, and was taken down Monday when the university learned from the media that confidential files were accessible, according to Ford. "People forget that when they put files on the Web server, they are indexed," Ford said. "That's what happened. It ended up exposing information via this index and search process." Ford told that school officials found out from a media outlet -- and from its own searches -- that the sensitive information was online. The university immediately removed the information and is currently reviewing server logs to find out what may or may not have been accessed, according to Ford, who added that "if they had not been labeled confidential, there probably wouldn't have been any interest in them."