Federal agency loses data on 583,000 Canadians

A portable hard drive containing personal information of more than half a million people who received student loans has gone missing, the federal government revealed Friday.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada says the device disappeared from an HRSDC office in Gatineau, Que., in early November.

The hard drive had personal information on 583,000 Canadians who were clients of the Canada Student Loans program from 2000 to 2006. Borrowers from Quebec, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are not affected.

The information on the missing hard drive includes:

Student names, social insurance numbers, dates of birth, contact information and loan balance of Canada Student Loan borrowers.
Personal contact information for 250 HRSDC employees.
The government says no banking or medical information was on the hard drive.

Letters are going out to everyone affected to tell them what steps to take to protect themselves.

 

That is scary. Getting that much information DoB, SIN, Contact. I hope they find it.

 

Same here mang.. That much info just floating around is really dangerous...

 

Hmm that's what all them name and number that came in my email where

 

Good thing I'm not from Canada

 

good thing im not from states :back:

 

yes this 100%

<3 Dark

 

God, I am so glad I am not either. I cannot imagine paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a surgery. :O

 

so bad turn out of the almost 40mill people in Canada mine just happens to be on this list ^_- man i don t have any luck... ah well time to change all my baninking info and such

 

The benefits of being young; ie not being in post secondary education from 2000-2006 XD

but Dark that seriously sucks major balls. I'd be flipping shit if it happened to me. I don't trust anyone D=

 

I love being young but ya that does suck. I wonder how long it will take to get this out to 583 thousand people. Probably be too late since the government is s. Go anywhere governmental and they are slow. And irresponsible. I went to get my passport and the lady took my moms licence so when they said licence my mom said the lady took it. This lady was on lunch WITH my moms license. They refused for us to talk to whoever was running that shipwreck and the ladies refused to believe she took it and refused to page her/use the intercom to get her back. The security guard actually told us to calm down. We had to wait at the back of this LONG line up too.

 

people might have my info :S