Missing Student Records From Chattanooga State

Nearly two thousand students records from Chattanooga State are missing.  Administrators there tell us the company hired to scan the documents, mishandled them.  The school says this is not the first time this company hired to protect information did the opposite.  They say it's the same business who dumped medical documents from several local hospitals last year.  Now the school is trying to safeguard their students personal information.

Some students at Chattanooga State like Anthony Price say they're concerned today.  "It's pretty scary, hopefully it won't happen again."

That after 1700 student applications are reported missing.  The school says it took the records to a company, United Imaging in Walker County, where the papers would be converted to computer discs.  Vice President Jeff Olingy says they had used the company for 3 years with no issues, until early last year.  "We were contacted by individuals who said there was something awry going on at this scanning site."

That's when the school found their records in disarray, and brought them back.  The papers included students' names, social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, some even contained high school transcripts.  Chattanooga State says they went through each one, hand by hand, and found nearly 2000 missing from 2007.  "When we looked at it by each item, we realized there were discrepancies and there were missing documents."

Just last week, the school sent this letter to the students whose files weren't found.  Olingy says they have no reports yet of identity theft, but want those affected to be informed.  The school has also decided to do the scanning themselves from now on and keep all records on campus.

Olingy says they had no idea their documents were being mishandled, but say they're not the only victim.  They believe it's the same company that discarded medical documents from several local hospitals in May of last year.  "It was certainly the same vendor and it was around the same time."

Price is glad his records weren't affected, but says the situation does worry him.  "As far as the company goes, they should have been more responsible with records because that's peoples social security numbers and identities that could be stolen."

We did call Chattanooga Police to see if United Imaging was, in fact, the same company involved in the medical document case, but we did not hear back.  We did also try to get in contact with the company, but the number listed was not working.