School board investigating data breach

The city’s public school board said Thursday it is “actively” investigating allegations one of its internal systems containing teacher and student information was compromised by a person claiming to have obtained unauthorized access.

“We have received information from a person alleging to have obtained unauthorized access to a school information system,” a spokesperson for the Calgary Board of Education told the Herald.

“This claim is being actively investigated,” said the CBE. “We are also complying with all of our obligations under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”

The board, which has been hit with significant privacy breaches in recent years, did not provide further details but said the person making the allegations “may be seeking notoriety and publicity for his/ her actions.”

In an email to local media earlier this week, an individual said he or she had repeatedly accessed CBE websites and obtained e- mail addresses, student grades and other personal information.

In 2012, board officials removed school trustee expense claims and receipts containing personal information from the CBE website. Later that month, an employee’s laptop containing the report cards of more than 2,000 students was stolen from a vehicle. The CBE subsequently spent more than $ 1 million encrypting its computers to protect confidential information.

And last fall, the principal of Georges P. Vanier School inadvertently disclosed confidential information, including personal phone numbers and e- mail addresses, of roughly 500 junior high students in a mass e- mail to parents.