When student data is hacked & stolen: Regulators’ lessons from the PowerSchool data breach

You may recall hearing about a significant cybersecurity breach affecting school boards from the end of last year and the beginning of this year: the PowerSchool cybersecurity incident. In the past little while, the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Ontario and Alberta have released their reports of findings into the incident. (Ontario, Alberta) There is some interesting stuff in there that I think is worth chatting about. I’ll note that the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Saskatchewan also released a report of findings in August of this year.

This incident affected millions of students, parents, and educators across the country, involved sensitive personal information, and raised questions about outsourcing, cybersecurity, and accountability in the public sector. But many of these issues will be relevant for the private sector. You simply can’t outsource accountability for protecting data. 

One thing to be sensitive to is that school boards are chronically under-resourced and have a very hard time meeting their privacy and security obligations under existing budgets. Personally, I think the provinces should take a much more active role in working with school boards and their contractors to ensure the highest levels of cybersecurity. We’re seeing that with health information systems, and should expect it for student information systems.

Before I get into the main point of this episode, one digression … At least in Canada, we always have to ask “what privacy law applies?” When the incident came to light, it was completely clear that at least in Canada, public school boards and their students were affected. Every school board is subject to a provincial public sector privacy law. So there’d be no doubt that a provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner would have jurisdiction to investigate the incident. 

It was interesting that the federal commissioner jumped in there. The federal commissioner has jurisdiction under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act – or PIPEDA – where there is a collection, use and disclosure of personal information in the course of commercial activity. 

In this case, the collection, use and disclosure of personal information was in the course of the school boards’ non-commercial activities. Just because the contractor – in this case PowerSchool is doing this for commercial purposes – should not give the federal commissioner jurisdiction. While both public and private sector privacy laws contain obligations to safeguard data, they work in very different ways. If a public sector privacy law applies to the school board, while the private sector law applies to the contractor with respect to the same information, it is unworkable. The two categories of laws are simply not compatible.

Regardless, the federal Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada also started making inquiries with PowerSchool, first announced on January 20. On February 11, the federal Commissioner announced they had launched an investigation and noted that they’d remain in close contact with provincial and territorial counterparts on the incident. There was no mention on the basis of his jurisdiction to investigate.

In July, the federal Commissioner announced that they’d negotiated a number of commitments from PowerSchool regarding cybersecurity upgrades, certification and monitoring. It’s worth noting that the letter of commitment specifically says that the Commissioner was of the view that PIPEDA applied in this case, PowerSchool did not agree, and reserves all future rights. And rightly so. At some point, we really need a court to step in to clearly lay down the lines between privacy laws in Canada. 

Thanks for indulging me for this digression. Now onto the main part of this episode, where I plan to cover four things:

1. The background to PowerSchool and how schools use it

2. What happened in the cyberattack

3. What the Ontario and Alberta regulators investigated and concluded

4. Where their findings align — and where they differ

PowerSchool is a major education technology provider. Across Canada, school boards use PowerSchool’s Student Information System, or SIS, to manage day-to-day education operations. That includes:

• Student enrollment and attendance

• Grades and academic records

• Contact information for students and parents

• Medical alerts, accommodations, and special needs

• Staff and educator information

In many provinces, PowerSchool hosts this data in cloud-based environments that are largely operated and managed by PowerSchool itself, not the school boards. Of course, it’s done on the school boards’ behalf. 

Crucially, under Canadian privacy laws, school boards remain legally responsible for the personal information — even when a third-party service provider is handling it. That legal principle becomes very important once something goes wrong.

THE INCIDENT: WHAT HAPPENED?

The cyberattack was discovered in late December 2024.

Here’s what investigators from Ontario and Alberta determined happened. A threat actor obtained valid credentials belonging to a PowerSchool support contractor. These credentials had elevated privileges, meaning they could access PowerSchool’s internal support portal called PowerSource. PowerSource exists so that PowerSchool staff can provide remote technical support to customer school boards.

Once inside PowerSource with these credentials, the attacker was able to access multiple school boards’ Student Information System environments — effectively stepping through the front door.

From there, the attacker accessed student and educator databases, exfiltrated large volumes of personal information and copied data rather than encrypting systems. This was data theft, not ransomware in the traditional “systems locked” sense that we often see.

The compromised data included:

• Names, dates of birth, and contact details

• Student ID numbers

• Medical alert fields and accommodations

• Guardianship or custody indicators

• Educator contact and employment details

In Alberta, some school boards reported that social insurance numbers were also involved.

After the breach was discovered, PowerSchool paid a ransom, reportedly believing that the data would be deleted. Months later, a second extortion attempt occurred involving the same stolen data — a reminder that once data is taken, control is largely lost.

Paying the ransom might have been a very sensible thing to do in the circumstances, but it’s no guarantee that the data’s been deleted and will never re-surface.

THE REGULATORY RESPONSE

Because public bodies were involved, this triggered investigations by provincial privacy regulators.

• In Ontario, the Information and Privacy Commissioner investigated 20 school boards and the Ministry of Education.

• In Alberta, the Information and Privacy Commissioner investigated 33 school boards, charter schools, and a francophone authority.

In both provinces, the regulators focused on a central legal question: Did the public bodies take reasonable measures to protect personal information, as required by their respective privacy statutes?

ONTARIO FINDINGS

The Ontario Commissioner concluded that, as a group, the institutions did not meet their statutory obligations under FIPPA and MFIPPA. That’s the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. 

There were three major themes in the Ontario findings: (1) Inadequate Security Safeguards, (2) Weak Contracts and Oversight, and (3) Data Minimization and Retention Failures.  

1. Inadequate Security Safeguards

The Commissioner identified multiple weaknesses with Security Safeguards

• PowerSchool accounts with excessive privileges - The rationale for the principle of least privilege is to reduce security and privacy risk by limiting the damage that can result from human error, malicious insiders, or compromised accounts. It should be implemented by granting users, systems, and applications only the specific permissions required to perform defined tasks, using restrictive defaults, role-based or task-based access controls, time-limited elevation of privileges, and regular access reviews to remove unnecessary or outdated permissions.

• No mandatory multi-factor authentication for PowerSource access - This is one of the most important and effective measures for preventing unauthorized use of purloined credentials. 

• “Always-on” remote maintenance access - This meant that a bad guy with the credentials could get access to the maintenance tools, rather than only at the invitation of individual school boards.

• Short log-retention periods, which limited detection of earlier suspicious activity

While PowerSchool operated the systems, Ontario emphasized that the school boards were still responsible for ensuring reasonable protections were in place.

2. Weak Contracts and Oversight

Ontario was particularly critical of how school boards managed their contracts with PowerSchool.

Many agreements:

• Lacked meaningful audit rights

• Did not require detailed security reporting

• Had limited enforcement mechanisms

• Did not clearly address subcontractors

Even more importantly from the OIPC’s point of view, the boards did not actively monitor PowerSchool’s compliance with those contracts. In other words, contractual promises existed — but verification did not.

3. Data Minimization and Retention Failures

The Ontario Commissioner also focused on data minimization and retention failures. The Commissioner found that many institutions simply collected more data than necessary and retained data far longer than required.

That significantly amplified the harm when the breach occurred. If you don’t need it, don’t collect it. If you no longer need it, don’t retain it. If you fail on either one of those – or both! – you  have more data that you have to protect and more data that’s affected if things go wrong. 

The Ontario Commissioner also found that breach response planning was inconsistent and, in some cases, inadequate.

ALBERTA FINDINGS

Alberta reached a similar conclusion, but approached the analysis somewhat differently.

The Alberta Commissioner found that the educational bodies failed to comply with section 38 of the FOIP Act, which requires reasonable security arrangements.

Key aspects of Alberta’s findings included (1) A lack of internal policies and guidance, (2) treating PowerSchool as an “employee”, and (3) an emphasis on the sensitivity of children’s data.

1. Lack of Internal Policies and Governance

Alberta placed strong emphasis on the fact that many educational bodies did not have adequate privacy or vendor-management policies, they could not point to documented procedures for assessing or monitoring service providers and they simply relied heavily on PowerSchool’s assurances.

From the Alberta OIPC’s perspective, privacy compliance begins with governance.

2. PowerSchool Treated as an “Employee”

One notable legal point in Alberta’s report is that, under FOIP, a service provider performing services for a public body is legally treated as an “employee”. That meant PowerSchool’s actions were attributed directly to the school boards themselves. This reinforces the idea that outsourcing does not reduce accountability.

3. Strong Emphasis on Sensitivity of Children’s Data

Alberta was particularly explicit in recognizing that children’s personal information is inherently highly sensitive, especially medical and accommodation data.

That sensitivity raised the expected standard of protection — and Alberta concluded that PowerSchool’s safeguards fell below that standard.

KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ONTARIO AND ALBERTA 

The conclusions in Ontario and Alberta were broadly aligned, but there are some differences in emphasis.

1. Governance vs. Contracting Focus

• Ontario focused heavily on contracts, oversight, and vendor management failures.

• Alberta focused more on internal policies, governance frameworks, and statutory accountability.

2. Sensitivity of Information

• Alberta placed stronger, more explicit weight on the heightened sensitivity of children’s data.

• Ontario addressed sensitivity, but framed much of the analysis around risk amplification through retention and over-collection.

Despite these differences, both regulators reached the same core conclusion: The public bodies did not meet their legal obligations, and outsourcing did not excuse that failure.

BROADER LESSONS

There are several broader takeaways from these investigations.

First, outsourcing does not outsource accountability. Public bodies remain legally responsible for personal information, regardless of who hosts it. This is the same in the private sector for outsourcing. Accountability does not shift under Canadian privacy laws. 

Second, contracts alone are not enough: Oversight, auditing, and verification matter.

Third, data minimization is a security control: Retaining unnecessary data simply increases breach impact.

And finally, children’s data demands higher standards. Regulators are very clear on that point.

CONCLUSION 

The PowerSchool incident may be just another cybersecurity story, but like most such stories there are lessons to be learned or reminders of things we should already know.

It’s a case study in public-sector procurement, privacy governance, and risk management.

Ontario and Alberta both sent a clear message: If you rely on third-party platforms to manage sensitive data — especially data about children — you must actively govern those relationships, not simply trust them.

In the backdrop to all of this is the simple fact that most school boards are chronically under-resourced and have a very hard time meeting their privacy and security obligations under existing budgets. This is particularly the case for smaller – often rural – school boards. The same can be said for smaller municipalities. Personally, I think the provinces should take a much more active role in working with school boards and their contractors to ensure the highest levels of cybersecurity. For a system as widely used as PowerSchool, provincial departments of education should enter into master services agreements with all the appropriate security terms, and the provincial departments of education should actively oversee at least the security and audit portions of the delivery of services. 

One final thing to note – just because school boards are 100% accountable to their students for personal information they collect, use and disclose doesn’t mean that PowerSchool is necessarily off the hook. PowerSchool – and any contractor for that matter – can be liable to their customers for any contractual failings when it comes to safeguarding personal information. And depending on the contract terms, the contractor may be liable for the cost of any lawsuits that students and parents might bring against the school boards. And I can imagine some more extreme cases where students, parents and teachers could have a viable claim directly against PowerSchool. I understand there is one putative class action pending, started by a Calgary law firm. And this would be in addition to the at least 55 class action lawsuits filed in the United States by American plaintiffs. 

Canada's Privacy Regulators vs. TikTok: A critical overview

(This post is largely a transcript of the YouTube and podcast episode above.)

On September 23, 2025, the Federal Privacy Commissioner and his provincial counterparts in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec issued a joint report of findings into TikTok.  This is a big one. It raises some interesting — and troubling — questions about jurisdiction, children’s privacy, reasonableness, consent, and what it actually means to protect privacy.

In my view, the Commissioners have imposed an almost impossible standard on TikTok — one that, ironically, could actually reduce privacy for users. Let’s unpack what they found, and why I think they may have gone too far.

I’ll note that the finding is more than thirty pages long, with almost two hundred paragraphs. This should be treated as an overview and not a deep dive into all of the minutiae. 

TikTok Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based company owned by ByteDance, operates one of the most popular social-media platforms in the world. In Canada alone, about 14 million monthly users scroll, post, and engage on TikTok.

The investigation examined whether TikTok’s collection, use, and disclosure of personal information complied with PIPEDA, Quebec’s Private Sector Act, and the provincial privacy statutes of Alberta and B.C.

A key preliminary issue was jurisdiction. 

The British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act is a bit quirky. It says 

Application

3    (1)    Subject to this section, this Act applies to every organization.

    (2)    This Act does not apply to the following: (c) the collection, use or disclosure of personal information, if the federal Act applies to the collection, use or disclosure of the personal information;

TikTok argued that because of this, only one of the Federal Act or the British Columbia Act could apply. 

In my view, the response to this argument by the Commissioners is facile. They said: 

[22] Privacy regulation is a matter of concurrent jurisdiction and an exercise of cooperative federalism, which is a core principle of modern division of powers jurisprudence that favours, where possible, the concurrent operation of statutes enacted by the federal and provincial levels of government. PIPA BC has been “designed to dovetail with federal laws” in its protection of quasi-constitutional privacy rights of British Columbians. The legislative history of the enactment of PIPEDA and PIPA BC and their interlocking structure support the interpretation that PIPEDA and PIPA BC operate together seamlessly.

[23] PIPA BC operates where PIPEDA does not, and vice versa. In cases such as the present, which involve a single organization operating across both jurisdictions with complex collection, use, and disclosure of personal information, both acts operate with an airtight seal to leave no gaps. An interpretation of s. 3(2)(c) that would deprive the OIPC BC of its authority in any circumstance the OPC also exercises authority is inconsistent with the interlocking schemes and offends the principle of cooperative federalism.

In my view, this has nothing to do with “cooperative federalism”. In this case, they’re waving their hands instead of engaging in helpful legal analysis. The British Columbia legislature chose to say that if PIPEDA applies, PIPA will not. This is not about constitutional law. The Commissioners could have articulated a much more clear and straightforward response to this argument: TikTok collects personal information across Canada, in BC and elsewhere. PIPA applies to “the collection, use and disclosure of personal information that occurs within the Province of British Columbia” (This is from the federal regulation regarding PIPEDA’s application in British Columbia.) So in this joint investigation, BC’s PIPA applies to the personal information of British Columbians and PIPEDA applies to the personal information of individuals outside of British Columbia. They could have said that, but they didn’t. They did say it was about “overlapping protections” and not “silos”. I think this is incorrect. The British Columbia Act and the Federal Regulation clearly say: this is “the BC Commissioner’s silo”, and this is “the Federal Commissioner’s silo.”

So, the investigation moved forward jointly, setting the stage for three major questions:

1. Were TikTok’s purposes appropriate?
   
   

2. Was user consent valid and meaningful?
   
   

3. Did TikTok meet its transparency obligations — especially in Quebec?
   
   

The first issue asked whether TikTok was collecting and using personal information — particularly from children — for an appropriate and legitimate purpose.

TikTok’s terms forbid users under 13 (14 in Quebec), but the Commissioners found its age-assurance tools were largely ineffective. The platform relied mainly on a simple birth-date gate at signup, plus moderation for accounts flagged by other users or automated scans.

As a result, TikTok said that it removes around half a million under-age Canadian accounts each year — but regulators concluded that many more likely go undetected.

It seems to me that terminating half a million accounts a year because they think the user may be underaged is a pretty strong sign that the company is sincere in its desire to NOT have kids on their platform. 

They also noted TikTok already uses sophisticated facial- and voice-analytics tools for other purposes, like moderating live streams or estimating audience demographics, but not to keep kids off the platform. The regulators want TikTok to re-purpose these tools for age estimation. 

The Commissioners found that TikTok was collecting sensitive information from children — including behavioral data and inferred interests — without a legitimate business need. In their view, that violates the “reasonable person” standard under PIPEDA s. 5(3) and the comparable provisions in the provincial laws.

This part makes my head hurt a bit. The regulators said:

[67] In light of the above (as summarized in paragraphs 64 to 66), we determined that TikTok has no legitimate need or bona fide business interest for its collection and use of the sensitive personal information of these underage users (in the context of PIPEDA, PIPA AB and PIPA BC), nor is this collection and use in support of a legitimate issue (in the context of Quebec’s Privacy Sector Act). It is therefore our finding, irrespective of TikTok’s assertion that this collection and use is unintentional, that TikTok’s purposes for collection and use of personal information of underage users are inappropriate, unreasonable, and illegitimate, and that TikTok contravened subsection 5(3) of the PIPEDA, section 4 of Quebec’s Private Sector Act, sections 11 and 14 of PIPA BC and sections 11 and 16 of PIPA AB.

It’s clear that TikTok does not want children on its platform and takes active steps to keep children off its platform. The regulators were clear that they didn’t think the measures taken were adequate, but I didn’t see them say that TikTok was insincere about this. So they find that TikTok’s purposes for collecting personal information from children was not reasonable. 

But TikTok had no purposes for collecting personal information from children. If kids make it through the age-gate and don’t have their account deleted, TikTok still does not want that data. They essentially said: “Your collection of personal information that you do not want and do not try to get is unreasonable.” Ok. I guess that’s their view. 

The second issue focused on consent — whether TikTok obtained valid and meaningful consent for tracking, profiling, targeting, and content personalization.

The Commissioners said it did not.

They found that TikTok’s privacy policy and consent flows were too complex, too long, and lacked the up-front clarity needed for meaningful understanding. In particular:

• Key information about what data was being collected and how it was used wasn’t presented prominently.
  
  

• Important details were buried in linked documents.
  
  

• The privacy policy was not available in French until the investigation began.
  
  

• And users were never clearly told how their biometric information — facial and voice analytics — was used to infer characteristics like age and gender.
  
  

Even for adults, the Commissioners said consent wasn’t meaningful because users couldn’t reasonably understand the nature and consequences of TikTok’s data practices.

And for youth 13–17, TikTok mostly relied on the same communications used for adults — no simplified, age-appropriate explanations of how data is collected, used, or shared.

Under the Commissioners’ reasoning, because the data involved is often sensitive — revealing health, sexuality, or political views — TikTok needed express consent. They found the platform failed that standard.

[81] Additionally, while users might reasonably expect TikTok to track them while on the platform, which they can use for “free”, it is our determination that they would not reasonably expect that TikTok collects the wide array of specific data elements outlined earlier in this report or the many ways in which it uses that information to deliver targeted ads and personalize the content they are shown on the platform. Many of these practices are invisible to the user. They take place in the background, via complex technological tools such as computer vision and TikTok’s own machine learning algorithms, as the user engages with the platform. Where the collection or use of personal information falls outside of the reasonable expectations of an individual or what they would reasonably provide voluntarily, then the organization generally cannot rely upon implied or deemed consent.

The Commissioners’ reasoning is generally coherent, but I’m not sure that it directly leads to a requirement for express consent. Consent can be implied where the individual understands what information is being collected and how it will be used, and it makes sense to take into account whether the individual expects the collection and use.  The main issue here is that there was collection and use of information outside the reasonable expectations of the individual. TikTok’s data practices are part of its “secret sauce” that has led to its success. Following the reasoning of the Commissioners … if TikTok had better calibrated the expectations of its users, it could have relied on implied consent. 

The Quebec Commissioner took things even further. Under Quebec’s Private Sector Act, organizations must inform the person concerned before collecting personal information.

The CAI found TikTok failed to highlight key elements of its practices and was using technologies like computer vision and audio analytics to infer users’ demographics and interests without adequate disclosure.

The CAI also found that TikTok allowed features that could locate or profile users without an active opt-in action, violating Quebec’s rule that privacy settings must offer the highest level of privacy by default.

Now here’s where I think the Commissioners overreached.

They’re effectively holding TikTok — and by extension, every global digital platform — to a near-impossible standard.

First, on age verification: to exclude all under-13 users, TikTok would need to collect more information from everyone — things like government-issued ID or facial-age scans. That’s exactly the kind of sensitive biometric data privacy regulators have previously warned against.

So in demanding “better” age assurance, the Commissioners are actually requiring more surveillance and more data collection from all users — adults and teens alike. While it may be “protecting the children”, like so many age assurance tools it is actually privacy-invasive.

Second, on consent and transparency: privacy regulators have long said privacy policies are too long, too legalistic, and too hard to read. Yet here, they criticize TikTok for not providing enough detail — for not being even longer and more comprehensive.

So which is it? We can’t reasonably expect the average user to read a novel-length privacy policy, yet that’s what these findings effectively require.

And third, the Commissioners’ reasoning conflates complexity with opacity. TikTok’s algorithms and personalization systems are complex — that’s the nature of modern machine learning. Explaining them “in plain language” is a noble goal, but demanding a full technical manual risks burying users in noise.

In my view, this decision reflects a growing tension in privacy regulation: between idealism — the desire for perfect transparency and perfect protection — and pragmatism — the need for solutions that actually enhance user privacy without breaking the internet.

The regulators seem to be demanding a standard of perfection in a messy and complicated world. These laws can be applied reasonably and flexibly.

One final thing to note: The regulators say that information provided to support consent from young people (over the age of 13 or 14) has to be tailored to the cognitive level of those young people. That means it has to be subjective, in light of the individual. But the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is arguing in the Supreme Court of Canada against Facebook that consent is entirely objective, based on the fictional “reasonable person” (who is NOT a young person). They should pick a lane. 

So, where does this leave us? TikTok has agreed to implement many of the Commissioners’ recommendations — stronger age-assurance tools, better explanations, new teen-friendly materials, and improved consent flows.

But whether these measures will truly protect privacy — or simply demand more data from more users — is a question regulators and platforms alike still need to grapple with.