Ministry of Education Data Breach (2015)

This time the education ministry “lost” “personal information for 3.4 million B.C. and Yukon students and B.C. teachers from 1986 and 2009. The hard drives included names, addresses, genders, birth dates and education identity numbers, teacher retirement plans, substance abuse information, mental health issues, psychological assessments, plus detailed family data, social, type of schooling, grade information, graduation status, financial aid data, and designations such as ESL and special needs, economic and education status of cancer victims and children in provincial foster care and health and behaviour issues for children in care. (1)(2)(5)(7) “It also included family troubles and police interventions……, letters from members of the public with specific complaints about teachers; particulars on some 1,000 cancer survivors who took part in a lengthy research trial”. (9) This information was NOT anonymous. All information could be connected to people’s names. (8)