Christy Clark’s government failed to protect personal information of 3.4 million students

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DeathtoStock_Wired2VANCOUVER— A report from British Columbia’s privacy commissioner shows that Christy Clark’s government broke the law when they failed to protect the private information of 3.4 million students, say the B.C. New Democrats.

“This is just another example of Christy Clark putting our children at risk,” said Rob Fleming, New Democrat spokesperson for education. “The last thing that families and teachers want to be worrying about, is their sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.

“Even worse, Christy Clark’s government still haven’t managed to find the disk that was improperly stored in order to save a few bucks. It’s clear that Christy Clark doesn’t really care.”

In September 2015, Christy Clark’s government admitted that they had lost an unprotected hard drive which stored more than 3 million personal student records and thousands of other personal records – including information on health records and financial aid. A new report from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner shows that this unprecedented loss of information was completely avoidable, that the hard drive was stored improperly as a cost-saving measure, and that the hard drive is still missing.

“Christy Clark’s government can’t seem to learn their lesson when it comes to protecting the personal information of British Columbians,” said Doug Routley, New Democrat spokesperson for citizen services. “This missing hard drive is just the latest in a long line of privacy breaches under the Christy Clark government, and it shows that protecting people’s sensitive information is not a priority for them.

“Their response is always to say that they will do better next time, but they have run out of next times, and it’s an unacceptable response to an unacceptable mistake.”