The Delta School District is reporting a “possible privacy breach” involving the MyEdBC mobile app last week.
In a letter to parents dated Thursday, Oct. 15, assistant superintendent Brad Bauman said that,for approximately 27 hours spanning Oct. 9-10, secondary students had incorrectly been assigned privileges in the MyEdBC system allowing them to access the personal information of other students at their school.
The issue, which lasted from Friday at 9:27 a.m. until the district learned of the problem at noon on Saturday, only occurred for students accessing the MyEdBC system using the mobile app. Bauman said approximately 250 students accessed the system during that time.
“As soon as the problem was discovered, all access was disabled, and the problem has now been corrected with the software provider,” Bauman wrote.
“While the school district has no information which suggests that any student inappropriately accessed the personal information of other students, we are notifying you of this event out of an abundance of caution.”
Personal information that may have been impacted includes student and parent names and contact numbers, district-assigned student numbers, attendance records, course schedules, enrollment details and emergency contacts.
“No information about student grades and no medical information would have been accessible,” Bauman wrote.
“While we have no reason at this time to believe that student personal information has been accessed or used inappropriately, we still encourage parents and students to remain alert to any unusual inquiries or communications from third parties and we ask that you notify the school district of any such communications that you believe are connected to this event.”
Bauman said the school district takes the privacy of students seriously and is actively taking steps to increase IT testing and training to ensure that no further incidents of this nature occur.
Further, if parents have any questions about the incident they can contact him at bbauman@deltasd.bc.ca.
If any students did access another student’s personal information, they are also asked to contact Bauman at bbauman@deltasd.bc.ca so he can advise them on how to deal with the information.
The district has also reported the incident to the BC Information and Privacy Commissioner, and Bauman noted parents have the right to file a complaint Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner by calling 250-387-5629.
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