TORONTO – The University of Waterloo has apologized to prospective students after a website error resulted in the potential information exposure of 74,000 people.
According to a university spokesperson, the incident happened last week after a change was applied to the student application system for graduate and undergraduate students. The change temporarily gave users access to a search function that should have been for staff use only.
The search function was accessible for a week.
Though no contact information would have been visible on the system, an application ID number that would allow information like high school attended, grade point average at prior schools, and standardized tests scores to be seen.
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No identifiable information was at risk.
“The university is extremely sorry that this type of error occurred,” said UOW vice-president Tim Jackson. “We take data and security very seriously.”
UOW was alerted to the error after a graduate applicant saw that the option was visible.
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The university did conduct tests to see if there had been any unusual activity on the system during the time the search option was visible, but did not see any evidence of misuse.
A spokesperson told Global News Wednesday the university is confident there was no unauthorized access to user information.
“We are very confident that no unusual activity was taken and that no one was accessing that data,” Jackson told Global News.
The university did inform the office of the Ontario privacy commissioner as a result of the error and the commissioner is investigating.
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