The Durham District School Board (DDSB) is apologizing after it “inadvertently” released a list of staff members who are unvaccinated or prefer to not to disclose their vaccination status.
A spokesperson for the board said a routine email was sent on Jan. 5 to around 399 DDSB employees on rapid test compliance and it included who has disclosed that they are either unvaccinated or did not disclose their vaccination status.
In the email was a spreadsheet attachment that listed everyone who is in that category, the spokesperson said.
The board has publicly said before there’s about 800 employees on that list.
“This incident should not have happened, and we have notified, apologized to and followed-up with the approximately 800 employees that were impacted,” spokesperson Charles Senior with the DDSB told Global News.
“The DDSB takes our responsibility to protect the personal information of all employees very seriously and we sincerely regret that this incident occurred.”
The spokesperson also said the board took action to delete all of the emails from the recipients’ inboxes.
“The DDSB is committed to doing everything possible to ensure that a similar incident does not occur in the future. We have discussed this incident to ensure there is a clear understanding of the critical importance of verifying that emails do not contain attachments of this nature and of the need to protect this type of information.”