John Henderson reports:
Alachua County school officials are investigating whether students’ personal information was compromised after a data breach in a computer system connected to school meal programs.
The district notified families of school children Monday that a letter sent out recently by PCS Revenue Control Systems Inc. — a company that handles computer services for reduced lunch programs — is legitimate.
We’ve been seeing a number of these notifications, as reported elsewhere on this site. But in this case, school officials note that they never had a contract with PCS Revenue Control.
“Although our district has not used PCS Revenue Control Systems, we did use a company called Advanced Business Technologies (ABT) that was later taken over by PCS,” the letter said. “Our contract with ABT to gather information for families applying for free or reduced-price meals ended in 2016.”
So it seems that PCS got the district’s data when it acquired ABT, even though there was never a direct contract with PCS.
School district officials report they are having trouble getting in touch with PCS.
Updated April 14, 2021: PCS’s report to Indiana indicates that 867,209 people were impacted nationwide.