cp24.com

As a Canadian, I feel bad for those Toronto District School Board students and staff who had their identities stolen A week ago, the Toronto District School Board [disclosed a data breach](https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2025/01/20/powerschool-data-breach-toronto-public-school-students-from-1985-to-2024-impacted/) affecting students (and it appears, staff members). I live nearby, in Markham, which is part of York Region and not part of this data breach, but some of my former classmates at high school studied at a TDSB school in the past, making them victims of this fraud/theft. For students, it appears that names, dates of birth, addresses at the time of enrolment, health card numbers (Canada has single payer healthcare handled by each province or territory for essential health services, and this number doesn't change unless you move to another province or territory), as well as any special education/disability/medical information on file. For staff, it appears that names, employee IDs and email addresses were leaked. Now, unlike the United States, where Social Security Numbers could be on file in lots of different places; in Canada, Social Insurance Numbers usually only get provided to government agencies (and you generally don't provide your SIN to an elementary or high school if you are a student there), financial institutions where you can earn interest, dividends and capital gains, as well as employers you work for. In addition, it is not mandatory to use an SIN to apply for credit. However, when a Canadian applies for credit or accesses their credit report for another reason, they need to answer questions as part of identity verification/authentication, some of which could relate to former addresses and others could relate to their age (which can easily be calculated if you have their full date of birth). Adding to the problems, Toronto is the capital city of Ontario and this province has not yet implemented a newly passed law that enables consumers to f