The president of NorQuest College appeared before Alberta’s Public Accounts Committee Tuesday to explain how the school handled a massive privacy breach three years ago.
The school alleged in 2013, a former IT employee was sending harassing emails to former colleagues. The information contained in the emails raised alarm bells for the college so it obtained an order to search the person’s devices.
Following a forensic investigation, NorQuest allegedly found a number of confidential files taken from its servers.
Despite the incident happened years ago, many people learned about it this year. On Sept. 4, 2016, NorQuest posted a statement about the alleged fraud on its website.
On Tuesday, the president of NorQuest and other individuals were grilled about that timeline.
Jodi Abbott told the committee the school took all the right steps and was able to recover the files.
“What we did was we protected two individuals who were specifically targeted and we were able to secure all of the information.”
Abbott said over the course of the investigation, the college uncovered an alleged fraud involving this former employee that cost the school more than $1 million.
NorQuest was able to cover loses and costs totalling $1.62 million.
However, members of the Public Accounts committee from opposition parties raised concerns it took so long to hear about the incident.
In a statement, Norquest College said a legal settlement of alleged fraud and privacy breach had been “successfully concluded”:
“NorQuest College was the target of an alleged fraud and misconduct relating to confidential information and financial assets between 2008 and 2012. Once NorQuest discovered the misconduct in early 2013, the college informed the board of governors and took swift and decisive steps with the best interests of students, employees, and the public in mind.”
The statement, posted on the college’s website, also said NorQuest had recovered all information, assets and funds related to the alleged fraud.
It also said because there was “a pending potential criminal investigation by Edmonton Police Service, ongoing litigation, restrictions around the use of seized records, and emerging evidence of an alleged fraud perpetrated against the college, there was a risk that broad disclosure of the privacy breach would hinder both the criminal and civil investigations.”
The college said it worked with the two employees directly targeted and that the risk of harm to other staff was low.
NorQuest said it notified the police, office of the Auditor General, Advanced Education, and office of the Inforamtion and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.
With files from Tom Vernon, Global News
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