Application filed for class-action lawsuit against Montreal-area school board after privacy breach

An application for a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Quebec Superior Court against a Montreal-area school board after it circulated parents’ sensitive information.

On July 2, the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board (SWLSB) sent an email to parents of children attending Rosemere High School (RHS), on the North Shore, with a document containing names, birth dates, social insurance numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, country of birth, emergency telephone numbers and contacts.

The lawsuit reportedly alleges negligence in protecting sensitive information.

“We are currently in talks with the victims and cybersecurity experts to assess the potential damages,” said a representative for Lambert Avocats, the law firm representing the parents.

CityNews spoke with two of the parents affected by the data breach. Both requested anonymity.

“I immediately scrolled to where I knew our name would be, and noticed that we were on there, which made me then scroll to the right and realize the gravity of the situation because my date of birth, my SIN number, my address, the custody arrangements between myself and my husband were there as well as our country of birth,” one parent said.

“The general feeling was, was this a hack? Is this bigger than just human error? Who’s behind this and who else got this information?”

That parent of an RHS student told CityNews seeing their own social insurance number and other confidential information, along with those of other parents, came as a shock.

“I reacted like everybody else probably would have, said, ‘Oh my God,’ and then I closed it up because I have this funny sense of don’t look at other people’s information,” they said. “And I texted a friend and said, ‘you’ll never believe this.'”

Among parents, there was a sense of frustration and anger about how confidential information was managed by the school board.

“I think the general feeling is, how is a document with so much sensitive information so easily attached to an email and not password protected or not safeguarded at a better level?” the parent told CityNews.

Along with anger, there was a feeling of vulnerability.

“Going forward, obviously, we will have to be cognizant and aware of the fact that this could be an issue,” they added. “If somebody out there chooses to do something unseemly with the information, nobody can control it.”

Shortly after the original email, the parents were sent a text message asking them not to open the email and delete it. They were also asked to sign a form confirming they have done so.

The parent told CityNews it was ironic the school board would ask them to safeguard the information after they shared it widely in the first place.

“My immediate reaction was sort of an eye roll of, you know, how odd that you’re asking me to be careful with it when you made such a grave error,” they said. “And then it was more, ‘OK, let me not sign this until I know that we will be given some kind of protection.’

“You sent out all the information and now I have to sign a document saying I’m not going to do it. It was just a little bit odd.”

Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board chairperson James Di Sano said the incident would be reported to the provincial authorities as required by law.

Earlier this week, the school board announced it would pay for credit monitoring and identity protection for three years to all those affected by the privacy breach. Di Sano also said the school board will implement measures to strengthen the processes.

“I want them to stop this thinking only about the credit impact when this is impacting in so many areas,” the second parent told CityNews. “There’s divorced parents who are trying to keep information from the other parent that now that parent has it. There’s kids who are bullied and now potentially their bullies could have their address.

“There’s parents right now who are trying to either get a mortgage, get a new car, we can’t be locking our credit because we need our credit to get these things. So it becomes complicated, leaves us a little bit more vulnerable.”