No federal or state laws were broken by Metro State or the involved employee, nor were any College policies as they existed at the time violated, President Stephen Jordan announced at the March 9 open meeting regarding the stolen laptop computer.

Jordan also said that the data analysis derived from the student information had been used by the College both in the Title III grant application and by the Task Force on Online Education. “Once those charts were made available to the task force they became a public document and anyone had access to them,” he said.

The employee had received permission from the director of admissions and associate vice president of academic affairs to use the graphs and charts in his master’s thesis, Jordan added. He also reiterated that no identifying information was included in the thesis, the task force report or the grant application. To view the master's thesis prospectus, go to http://www.mscd.edu/securityalert/faq.htm.

While no College policies were breeched, Jordan added that he wanted to emphasize that this does not mean that these policies aren’t under scrutiny now and may be adjusted depending upon the outcome of the internal investigation that is being conducted by Business Controls Inc.

According to Jordan there still is no “factual evidence” that any of the personnel data is being used illegally, however, one audience member said that a student had reported to her that she had received a phone call from her bank that someone had tried to open a credit card in her name.

Steven Foster of Business Controls said that he had spoken with the student immediately upon learning of the incident, and that it could not be determined if this was an instance of “phishing” or an actual attempt to use stolen information. Foster said that the great amount of publicity surrounding the theft unfortunately would lead to “phishing,” which is when someone attempts to find out personal information through some type of scam. Therefore, no one should give out any information over the phone, rather if someone calls from a credit bureau or financial institution, you should verify information they provide you.

Foster said his firm is tracking all information they receive. “The minute we get a report of a problem, such as with this student, we follow up on it.”

Jordan said that anyone who is a victim of identity theft should report the incident to their local police and have them include the original Denver Police Department Offense Report case number, which is 2000609946.

Several audience members expressed concern about the whether the employee may have been a party to theft, to which Jordan said the College has cleared him of any involvement and he is not named as a suspect by the DPD.