Teaching Council apologises for data breach

<h2>TVNZ alerted the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand to a spreadsheet of information they discovered on a New Zealand-based online technology forum&comma; prompting a data breach apology&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>Teaching Council Chief Executive&comma; Lesley Hoskin says&comma; &&num;8220&semi;For clarity&comma; this was not a breach of information relating to our teacher conduct and competence database&period; It related to general enquiries and correspondence data and contained a short summary of the enquiry-it did not include fulsome material or attachments&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;However&comma; some of the information was sensitive and for that I am incredibly sorry&period; The number of people whose privacy was breached&comma; is approximately 43&comma; and I’m working with them directly to mitigate the impact of the breach&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Teaching Council has &&num;8216&semi;unreservedly apologised and continues to work with the affected parties on the ongoing actions&&num;8217&semi;&period; Communications with the persons affected are private and confidential&comma; and it would not be appropriate for the Teaching Council to comment any further&comma; said Hoskin&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The inadvertent and unintentional breach was a result of human error rather than a cybersecurity incident&period; TVNZ inadvertently discovered the breach-by typing specific details into Google that were contained in the spreadsheet&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;I am grateful to TVNZ for alerting me and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner&comma; so urgent action could be taken&period; I am extremely disappointed that this has happened&comma; and I wholeheartedly and unreservedly apologise for this breach of privacy&period; I have made sure the information can no longer be publicly accessed&comma; and we’re working urgently to rectify this matter&comma;&&num;8221&semi; says Hoskin&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Teaching Council is also in contact with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner who has advised that any information arising from this breach could cause a great deal of anxiety to the people affected and that journalists should not be accessing this information or contributing to its more widespread dissemination&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Hoskin added&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Our legal advisers confirmed that TVNZ understands that when a privacy breach occurs&comma; out of fairness to the responsible agency and the individuals affected&comma; it is best practice is to delete the document as soon as it&&num;8217&semi;s discovered and advise the agency concerned&period; It would be a breach of privacy for any person or organisation who finds information to use the information in any way&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Teaching Council has started conducting an internal investigation into their processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again&comma; and details of the investigation will remain confidential&period; Appropriate comment on the outcome of the internal investigation&comma; consistent with the Teaching Council’s employment obligations may be made when the investigation is concluded&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Once the internal investigation is concluded and the Teaching Council has determined precisely how the breach occurred&comma; it will take all necessary steps to ensure a similar breach does not occur again&period; The Teaching Council takes its obligations very seriously-to protect privacy and maintain appropriate confidentiality of all personal information&period; The Teaching Council is committed to ensuring all necessary safeguards are in place&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Office of the Privacy Commissioner supports the Teaching Council&&num;8217&semi;s actions to date noting they were pleased to see the Council took the necessary steps to minimise and prevent further harm to individuals concerned&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;