THUNDER BAY — Identity protection and credit monitoring services are being offered to students and staff affected by last month’s PowerSchool data breach.
School boards across Northwestern Ontario, including both the Lakehead District School Board and the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board, were advised by PowerSchool the company had suffered a data breach on Jan. 7.
PowerSchool is an app used for enrolment and attendance information.
The company is now offering two free years of identity protection services to students and educators whose information was involved.
Students and educators who have reached the age of majority can also access free credit monitoring services for two years.
The incident affected current and former students and staff, specifically for students who were enrolled since the 2015-16 school year, and a small number of students who have taken eLearning courses.
Impacted information includes: name, gender, date of birth, Ontario education number and student number, home and/or mailing address, most recent school enrolled, must recent home room class, enrolment arrival and departure dates, doctor’s name and phone number.
The public board said guardian and emergency contact names and phone numbers were also impacted and at the Catholic board, home phone numbers and the initial schools students were enrolled in were affected.
The Lakehead District School Board states no social insurance numbers were accessed.
The Catholic Board said two students had a record containing a social insurance number that were affected by the data breach, but that no social insurance numbers for any staff members were affected.
All students and educators can sign up for the identify protection services offered by Experian.
Only adults can sign up for credit monitoring services with TransUnio
Neither of these services is available to parents, guardians or emergency contacts.
Both of the Thunder Bay school boards have said in notices to parents and guardians that PowerSchool has monitored for signs of information misuses and have reported they are not aware at this time of any identity theft attributable to this incident.
In the region, the Kenora public school board and Rainy River public school board were also affected. The Greenstone-Superior board was not.
PowerSchool has provided instructions for signing up for these services online.
Anyone wanting to use these services must enroll before May 30, 2025.
Any questions about the monitoring services can be directed to PowerSchool’s call centre at 833-918-7884.
