More than 20,000 South Florida college students were put at risk of identity theft.
Broward College officials say a third party used to store students' personal information leaked the information for almost a week. Now, the company responsible is telling students to be on alert.
Broward College student Alaysia Harris is one of 24,000 students now finding out that their personal information could be in the wrong hands.
"This morning my mom called me and let me know," she said, so she immediately called her bank.
In a letter, the College Center for Library Automation, based in Tallahassee, admits it leaked summer school students' information over the Internet for five days. It happened during a software upgrade. Now students worried about identity theft.
"[Identity thieves] can do something crazy, and when I try to do something in the future, [companies] will be like, 'you have theft'," Korresha Williams said about the hurt to her credit she might face if her identity were to be stolen.
Company officials did not want to do an interview with us, but said in a letter to students that they're working to prevent this from happening again. Students are wondering how it could happen in the first place.
"Parents tell us all the time 'watch what you type on the Internet. Watch what you put on the computer,'" said student Jeffrey Marrero.
But this mix-up is out of the student's hands.
Broward College officials say the company at fault manages information for all of Florida's public colleges. Students are learning this just days before the start of the fall semester.
"Hopefully that same thing doesn't happen in the fall, because that would really devastate most of the students in this college here," said Marrero.
The College Center for Library Automation is urging students who took summer courses at Broward College to place fraud alerts on their credit files by contacting one of the three major credit bureaus.
