Unencrypted Hard Drive Containing 3.4M Child Services Records Goes Missing

The government of British Columbia is unable to locate a backup drive containing data on school students spanning more than a decade. 

"There's no doubt a mistake was made," Technology Minister Amrik Virk said. "First, in how the hard drive was created, and secondly, in how it was stored."

The hard drive was created in 2011 and contains student data from 1986 to 2009, including information on child health and behavior issues.

The Ministry of Education realized drive was lost while reviewing records to ensure compliance with data-storage standards, according to the Canadian Press.

Records show the hard drive should be in a locked cage inside a locked warehouse, but when personnel went looking for it, they came back empty. 

Virk said he learned Sept. 18 at 12:30 p.m. that the drive had been misplaced, but officials with the ministry have been trying to track it down since early August.

For some vulnerable students, the data on the exposed hard drive is of the utmost sensitivity.

The drive contains a 2008 file on 200 students who withdrew from the K-12 system in seven school districts, including the child’s --

• Full name and birth date.
• Substance abuse information.
• Mental health issues.
• Psychological assessments.
• Detailed family data.
• In-care status (e.g. foster home, group home).

Virk said the government will be examining the potential risk to individuals, and notifying them.

"The chief information officer will be examining the threats ... in terms of the potential for harm, whether it be humiliation, whether it be data, whether it be personal information," said Virk.

There is no indication the misplaced drive has led to fraud.

"It's hard to think of something more intimate and personal than this type of information,” said Vincent Gogolek of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. "Psychological assessments, describing in-care status, substance abuse, family problems. Even if it's not lost, even if it is sitting behind a filing cabinet, those people are going to be upset and rightly so."