A few errant keystrokes by an education department worker exposed the data of more than 500 Yukon students, according to a notification obtained by CBC News.
“The breach involves a risk of significant harm to your privacy,” reads the letter to affected students. The letter says names, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and social insurance numbers were all included.
The leak took place when a department employee included an unidentified person’s email address when forwarding a spreadsheet containing the data of students who applied to a post-secondary grant program to colleagues. Staff attempted to contact the person, the letter says, going so far as contacting their workplace.
“It’s concerning to me that someone didn’t double check this email before they hit send,” said Fiona, a Whitehorse parent whose daughter was affected by the breach. CBC has agreed to withhold her last name so as not to compound the privacy breach because her daughter is a minor. Fiona shared a copy of the letter that was sent to her daughter.
Eventually, education department staff were able to contact the person who received the email, said David McInnis, the department’s privacy officer. He said the person got the email because of an auto-fill error. But he said they never opened the email and agreed to immediately delete it.
