St. John’s, NL (January 31, 2025) – Paul Dinn, Progressive Conservative Shadow Minister for Education and MHA for Topsail-Paradise, is once again calling on the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the massive PowerSchool cyber-attack.

Dinn was astonished to learn yesterday—when the Minister finally broke her silence at an unrelated announcement—that the Department of Education still does not know the full extent of the information stolen by hackers.

“This is simply unbelievable,” said Dinn. “The attack occurred on December 28, and now, more than a month later, the government still doesn’t know the full scope of the breach. What exactly was taken? We need the Privacy Commissioner to use her legislated authority to get to the bottom of this.”

Dinn pointed out that the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has already launched an investigation, while the Federal Privacy Commissioner is also looking into PowerSchool.

“We know that at least 271,000 student files and 14,400 teacher files were accessed as part of this breach,” added Dinn. “If the Minister refuses to request a review, then the Privacy Commissioner should launch her own investigation.”

Dinn also noted that after the 2021 healthcare cyber-attack, the Furey Liberals went to court to block the former Privacy Commissioner from conducting his investigation.

“This government has a poor track record of being open and transparent with the people of this province. Information has been slow to come out, and the Minister’s response—calling this breach ‘a consequence of becoming a more digital society’—does little to instill confidence in the protection of personal, medical, and financial information. Involving the Privacy Commissioner could help ensure those impacted are heard and potentially lead to better safeguards in the future.”

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