This incident has affected current and former students and staff.

PowerSchool is offering two years of complimentary identity protection services, provided by Experian, to students and educators whose information was involved. For involved students and educators who have reached the age of majority, in addition to Experian’s identity protection services, PowerSchool is also offering two years of complimentary credit monitoring services provided by TransUnion.

To be clear, all students and educators, past and present, can sign up for Experian’s services. Only adults can sign up for TransUnion’s services. PowerSchool is not offering these services to parents, guardians or emergency contacts.

Since the incident, PowerSchool has monitored for signs of information misuse. They have reported that they are not aware at this time of any identity theft attributable to this incident. That said, we encourage all to sign up for these complimentary services.

PowerSchool has provided instructions for signing up for these services , and we reproduce the instructions below, as well. Please note, for Lakehead Public Schools, SIN information WAS NOT impacted.

Offer: Experian Identity Protection Services – Available to All Involved Students and Educators

Enrollment Instructions for Experian IdentityWorks

• Ensure that you enroll by May 30, 2025 (Your code will not work after this date at 5:59 UTC)
• Visit the Experian IdentityWorks website to enroll:
• Provide your activation code: MPRT987RFK
• For questions about the product or help with enrollment, please email globalidworks@experian.com

Details Regarding Your Experian IdentityWorks Membership

A credit card is not required for enrollment in Experian IdentityWorks. You can contact Experian immediately regarding any fraud issues, and have access to the following features once you enroll in Experian IdentityWorks:

• Internet Surveillance: Technology searches the web, chat rooms & bulletin boards 24/7 to identify trading or selling of your personal information on the Dark Web.
• Fraud Remediation Tips: Self-help tips are available on your member center.

Offer: TransUnion Credit Monitoring Services – Available to Involved Students and Educators Who have Reached the Age of Majority in their Applicable Province or Territory

Enrollment Instructions for TransUnion myTrueIdentity

• Please visit . There you will find a link to the validation website, , where you will be prompted to validate your information by entering your first name, last name and year of birth.
• If your identity is validated, a pop up will appear that provides an activation code and provides you a link to TransUnion’s myTrueIdentity site to enroll.

Details Regarding your myTrueIdentity Membership

Upon completion of the online enrollment process, you will have access to the following TransUnion myTrueIdentity features:

• Unlimited online access to your TransUnion Canada credit report, updated daily. A credit report is a snapshot of your financial history and one of the primary tools leveraged for determining credit-related identity theft or fraud.
• Unlimited online access to your CreditVision® Risk credit score, updated daily. A credit score is a three-digit number calculated based on the information contained in your TransUnion Canada credit report at a particular point in time.
• Credit monitoring, which provides you with email notifications to key changes on your TransUnion Canada credit report. In today’s virtual world, credit alerts are a powerful tool to help protect you against identity theft, enable quick action against potentially fraudulent activity and provide you with additional reassurance.
• Access to online educational resources concerning credit management, fraud victim assistance and identity theft prevention.
• Access to Identity Restoration agents who are available to assist you with questions about identity theft. In the unlikely event that you become a victim of fraud; a personal restoration specialist will help to resolve any identity theft.  This service includes up to $1,000,000 of expense reimbursement insurance.
• Dark Web Monitoring, which monitors surface, social, deep, and dark websites for potentially exposed personal, identity and financial information and helps protect you against identity theft.

PowerSchool has provided a call centre to address questions regarding these services. If you have any questions or concerns about this notice, please call 833-918-7884, Monday through Friday, 8:00am through 8:00pm Central Time (excluding major US holidays). Please be prepared to provide engagement number B138905.

Should you have any questions for Lakehead Public Schools about this notice, please do not hesitate to contact us at psinfo@lakeheadschools.ca

The post Credit Monitoring and Identity Protection Update appeared first on èßäAV.

What Happened

On January 7, 2025, PowerSchool informed Lakehead Public Schools and other school boards throughout the province that that it had experienced a cyber incident affecting Lakehead Public Schools. Since then, we have been working with PowerSchool to determine the precise information that was affected.

What Information Was Affected

We have concluded our analysis and can confirm that limited student and staff information was impacted as part of this incident.

For all students who have been enrolled in Lakehead Public Schools since the 2015-2016 school year, the information includes:

• Name, Gender, Date of Birth, Ontario Education Number, Student Number, Home and/or Mailing Address; most recent school enrolled, most recent homeroom class name, enrollment arrival and departure dates, and expected graduation dates; guardian and emergency contact names and phone numbers, doctor’s name and phone number.

• For a small amount of students from other school boards who participated in eLearning courses offered by Lakehead Public Schools, the same data was also affected.

For some students the following additional information was also affected:

• Medical alert notes, guardianship notes related to custodial arrangements, notes regarding reasons for transferring between schools.

With respect to medical alert information, if you provided information to your child’s school about your child’s allergies, medical conditions or injuries when completing the start of school year forms, this information was included in the data that may have been accessed or acquired. Please note that medical information provided to members of Lakehead Public Schools’ Student Support team (e.g. Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Audiologists, Speech-Language Pathologists, and Social Workers) was not impacted by this incident.

This incident did not result in the compromise of any of the following information:

• Financial information, health assessment information, medical records, student academic grades, IEPs, or accommodations.

For all Educators and Administrative staff with PowerSchool SIS or PowerTeacher accounts who have worked in Lakehead Public Schools since the 2020-2021 school year, the information affected includes:

• Name, staff number, main school location, board e-mail address.

For some staff the following additional information was also affected:

• Home address, phone number, high-school department, main classroom number.

• Staff without a PowerSchool SIS or PowerTeacher account were not impacted (e.g. Support Staff such as Custodial staff, Maintenance staff, Student Support Professionals, and Lunchroom supervisors).

We have also prepared an FAQ regarding this incident, and we encourage you to visit that here: .

You can also find an FAQ from PowerSchool here:

Lakehead Public Schools has reported this incident to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC), and the IPC has opened an investigation file. While you are entitled to file a complaint, the IPC has advised that it is not necessary as they are already investigating the matter. For more information about this process, you can visit the IPC’s website at .

If you wish to have more information about this incident, we invite you to contact us at psinfo@lakeheadschools.ca.  Please understand that those who contact Lakehead Public Schools regarding this incident will need to verify their identity before we can release information about the specific impact to their information.

We appreciate your patience and understanding at this time, and sincerely regret any concern this has caused you.

The post Update on PowerSchool Cyber Incident appeared first on èßäAV.

It is important to update you about a cyber incident experienced by the Thunder Bay Catholic School Board and èßäAV involving the application: PowerSchool. 

PowerSchool is an application used by TBCDSB and LPS along with many school boards across North America. PowerSchool is a widely used Student Information System (SIS) that helps schools manage student data like enrollment, grades, attendance, and schedules. It provides tools for teachers, administrators, and families, including portals for parents and students to track academic progress and attendance. PowerSchool is utilized by thousands of school organizations across our country and the United States. 

On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, PowerSchool notified Lakehead Public Schools, Thunder Bay Catholic and other school boards in Ontario, and across North America, that they experienced a data breach on December 22, 2024.

PowerSchool, TBCDSB and LPS are investigating this breach. Our cybersecurity teams promptly activated our response plans, taking immediate steps to ensure that our critical systems remain operational.

At this point in time, we are still assessing the exact information that may have been accessed or exported from the application. PowerSchool has informed us that it has received confirmation that the data accessed by an unauthorized user has been deleted and that no copies of this data were made. If your personal information was compromised, we will inform you. The (IPC) Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has been informed of this breach.

PowerSchool has confirmed that the application is secure and we can continue to use it.  There are no changes in the user interface.

We understand that you may have questions as a result of this information, but we do not yet have more information to share at this time. We will continue to update you as more information becomes available. 

Thank you for your continued patience and understanding during this time.

Sincerely, 

Lakehead Public Schools

The post PowerSchool Data Breach appeared first on èßäAV.