Classrooms in Alberta have been hit by a data breach that has affected schools across Canada.
Parents and caregivers across the province received advisories Wednesday, informing them of a breach involving PowerSchool, an application used to store a range of student information.
School boards in multiple provinces have been impacted.Officials in Ontario, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador say they are working with PowerSchool to determine the extent of the breach.
Edmonton Catholic Schools posted a letter online that it received from PowerSchool.
“Our investigation determined that an unauthorized party gained access to certain PowerSchool Student Information System customer data using a compromised credential, and we regret to inform you that your data was accessed,” the letter said.
In an email sent to parents Wednesday, the St. Albert Public Schools division said it was among hundreds across North America dealing with the breach.
The letter informed parents said student information, including names, birth dates, addresses and phone numbers had been compromised. The division said its internal IT team was investigating the breach and taken steps to mitigate any further risk to student data.
“Our school division was not targeted individually. We are among dozens of Alberta school divisions, and hundreds more across North America, impacted by the breach,” St. Albert Public Schools told caregivers.
“We understand that news like this can be unsettling, and we want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to address the situation responsibly.”
Similar notices were issued Thursday by Conseil scolaire FrancoSud and the Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord, which serve hundreds of francophone students across Alberta.
Ontario’s Toronto, Peel and Durham district school boards issued similarly worded notices about a “cyber incident” targeting PowerSchool.
The notices say PowerSchool told school boards in Ontario and elsewhere on Tuesday that it had experienced a data breach between Dec. 22 and 28.
The Ontario school boards say they have notified the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario about the incident.
The government of Newfoundland and Labrador also issued a notice about the data breach at PowerSchool, which it said is used in the provincial education system from kindergarten to Grade 12. It said “multiple government departments” are involved in determining the next steps.
Incident ‘contained’
PowerSchool, a U.S.-based provider of cloud software, says in a statement it has taken “all appropriate steps” to prevent further unauthorized access or misuse of the affected data.
The company says the incident is “contained,” and it does not anticipate the data will be shared or made public.
PowerSchool said it is providing services to its customers as usual as it continues to investigate the data breach.
“We take our responsibility to protect student data privacy and act responsibly as data processors extremely seriously,” it said in its statement.