College-owned laptops being scanned under the MetroProtect security initiative are revealing more information stored on computers than most people realized.

“Even people who are telling us they’re certain they don’t have any private information stored on their laptops are surprised by what’s turning up in the scans,” said Yvonne Flood, assistant vice president of Information Technology.

Phase I of the project involved scanning laptops considered “high risk” because of the kind of data the user had access to. In Phase II, which got underway earlier this month, the Metro State-issued laptop computers of anyone with access to BANNER are being scanned.

Clyde Hoadley, IT security and disaster recovery coordinator, reviews the reports generated by the scans. “Even I was surprised by what showed up on my laptop,” he said. “Old documents contained my social security number, for example.” Hoadley said that other surprises yielded by the scans have included saved e-mail messages with credit card information or social security numbers.

Hoadley stressed that the scans are being performed by a computer program. “It’s not some person snooping through your data.”

Hoadley and Flood said the project is preventing breaches of both past and future data because in addition to being scanned, the laptops are reimaged with encryption software installed “to encrypt the entire hard drive,” said Flood. “Because of the encryption, if a laptop computer should be lost or stolen, a stranger won’t be able to read anything on the hard drive.”

In addition, laptops scanned and encrypted are having the newest version of the Windows operating system (Windows XP SP2) installed.