Local school boards have not been affected by a recent data breach involving software used by schools across North America to store student information.
As reported Thursday, Ontario's Toronto, Peel and Durham district school boards issued notices about a "cyber incident" targeting PowerSchool, a third-party application that's also used to store some school-based staff information.
There are no such fears in school boards administering Sault and Algoma District schools.
“We (Algoma District School Board) have not been impacted by any cyber incidents. We do not work with PowerSchool so we have not been impacted,” wrote Fran Walsh, ADSB spokesperson in an email to SooToday Thursday.
“I can confirm that the recent data breach has not impacted the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board. We take the security and privacy of our systems and data very seriously. Our information technology department is constantly monitoring and reviewing security protocols to ensure the safety of our networks,” wrote Danielle Dupuis, H-SCDSB spokesperson in an email we received Thursday.
PowerSchool told school boards in Ontario and elsewhere on Tuesday that it had experienced a data breach between Dec. 22 and 28.
Other school boards in Ontario - as well as Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador - were affected. Those boards have stated they are working with PowerSchool to determine the extent of the data breach.
PowerSchool said the incident is "contained," and it does not anticipate any data will be shared or made public.