Over on PogoWasRight.org, I’ve recapped the U.S. Education Department’s responses to privacy complaints filed by parent and students under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In going through the data provided to EPIC in response to their Freedom of Information Act request, I noted that in a few cases, the Family Policy Compliance…
Category: Education Sector
AU: University of Newcastle apologizes to students for privacy breach
From ABC in Australia: The University of Newcastle has apologised to several thousand students after personal information was posted online. The University says the student administration information inadvertently became available in an ‘online test environment’, but access was quickly closed down when it was notified about the incident two weeks ago. […] “So we’ve written…
Oakland School Employees Are ID Theft Victims after Records Were Left in Abandoned HQ
More details on this breach: The Oakland Unified School District abandoned its dilapidated headquarters in January 2013 after a janitor left a faucet on overnight and flooded the building. Educators departed and the homeless moved in, but no one bothered to remove or secure records that were scattered throughout the building. The folly of that…
TN: Personal records of all Elizabethton students accidentally emailed to parent
John Thompson reports: The Elizabethton City School System accidentally released personal information on all the system’s students on Tuesday. Superintendent Ed Alexander said the information was not further distributed. Alexander said the information release was an internal mistake and there was no hacking. “An official inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Alexander said. “All the report…
NC: Checks with Buncombe school employee information stolen
Julie Ball reports: Buncombe County school officials have alerted more than 170 employees after an envelope containing checks with their names and Social Security numbers was stolen and some of the checks were cashed. The checks were mailed in March to ING, the financial services company, as contributions to supplemental retirement plans. Some employees contribute…
UK: School near Wrexham alerts parents as pupil info lost
Charlie Crossdale reports: Data containing details on children who have attended a primary school over the past decade has been lost. Ysgol Sant Dunawd in Bangor-on-Dee near Wrexham is appealing to parents of pupils, past and present, to get in touch over the potential loss of data, after a backup device containing the Schools’ Information…