At 8 am today, registration opened for the 2018-19 school year for returning participants enrolled in the EXCEL program. This program provides before and after school care for elementary-aged children in 62 schools throughout the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE).
At 8:37 am, the system was shut down following concerns raised by users that they could see personal information of people who had completed their registration.
Approximately 3,200 parents/guardians would have received an access code to register this morning. Of those with access, 1091 completed their registration form, and 82 had started but did not finish.
An investigation is underway to determine what personal information was available and to whom. At this point it appears the information available included contact information and some medical information.
In addition to shutting down the system and launching an investigation, the following steps have been taken:
- The Information and Privacy Commissioner for Nova Scotia has been contacted.
- All parents/guardians who received a registration code have been notified of the potential breach.
This information is stored on the HRCE’s servers which are not connected to provincial servers.
We regret that this has happened and are taking this matter seriously.