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Department of Education data breach overview:
- Who: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) claims the Department for Education (DfE) bears responsibility for an alleged breach of data protection laws by Trust Systems Software UK (Trustopia).
- Why: The ICO claims the DfE failed to prevent Trustopia from gaining unauthorised access to a student database that allowed it to conduct age-verification checks using the data of as many as 28 million children.
- Where: The data breach reportedly occurred nationwide.
A U.K. screening firm conducting age-verification checks using information from a student database containing the information of as many as 28 million children resulted in an alleged data breach.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) called the alleged unauthorised access to the student database a “prolonged misuse” of information that the Department for Education (DfE) ultimately bears responsibility for, The Guardian reports.
The ICO reportedly argues the DfE failed to prevent the screening firm, Trust Systems Software UK, from gaining unauthorised access to the student database, and the children’s data, from between September 2018 and January 2020.
Trust Systems, trading as Trustopia, accessed the learning records service database, which exists to allow schools and higher education institutions to record learning and training accomplishments for students, The Guardian reports.
The student database, which DfE’s Education and Skills Funding Agency operates, reportedly stores information on children ages 14 and older.
Data reportedly used to confirm gambling company customers of legal age
Trustopia used the access for age verification purposes, a resource it offered to companies such as leading data intelligence firm GB Group, that could help gambling companies confirm their customers were of legal age, The Guardian reports.
Betting firms that took advantage of the access were reportedly able to increase their young customer base by quickly referencing the student database when conducting age verification checks.
While the age verification checks did not expose any of the children’s data, it still was a violation of data protection laws because the information gathered was not used for its original intended purpose, according to the ICO.
In other data privacy news, in June, telecoms company TalkTalk asked a judge to dismiss a class action lawsuit accusing it of allowing criminals to access the private data of its users during data breaches in 2014 and 2015.
Have you been impacted by a data breach? Let us know in the comments!
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