June 30-2020 - The Saskatchewan Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner (IPC) has released an Investigation Report regarding a privacy breach that occurred in June 2019 in Saskatchewan school divisions. The breach followed a Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF)-commissioned survey asking for student information from teachers.
The full IPC report is available at: https://oipc.sk.ca/assets/lafoip-investigation-211-2019-215-to-241-2019.pdf.
Key points relating to the breach:
- The Investigation Report regarding a privacy breach that occurred in June 2019 includes details of the breach and actions taken by school divisions, including Regina Public Schools.
- Regina Public Schools was not aware of or involved in the survey process and does not know what data was collected by the contractor commissioned by the STF to conduct the survey.
- Upon learning of the survey, the Regina Public Schools Director of Education instructed teachers not to complete the online survey.
- It is understood by Regina Public Schools that efforts were undertaken to contain the breach. It was requested that the contractor destroy the data and disable the online survey.
- The IPC provided recommendations for further action for both the STF and for school divisions.
- Details related to Regina Public Schools’ actions related to this issue are on pages 44 to 46. https://oipc.sk.ca/assets/lafoip-investigation-211-2019-215-to-241-2019.pdf
- Regina Public Schools acknowledges that this is an unfortunate circumstance and has taken the recommendations of the IPC seriously.
