Data breach of Ontario’s vaccine booking system affects hundreds of thousands, province says | 24CA News

Hundreds of hundreds of Ontarians’ data might have been compromised in an information breach of the province’s vaccine administration system final yr.

Beginning Friday, some 360,000 folks will obtain notices that their private data was a part of the November 2021 information breach of the COVAXX system, the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery mentioned in an announcement Friday. 

The ministry mentioned it had been working with the Ministry of Health, police and the Ontario’s privateness commissioner to find out the size and influence of the breach. The ministry’s assertion doesn’t say the way it occurred.

Two folks had been charged in reference to the breach final yr.

One of accused, a 21-year-old who lives in Ottawa’s Gloucester space, was an worker of the vaccine contact centre, a part of the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, Ontario Provincial Police mentioned in a news launch final yr. 

The different was a 22-year-old man from Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que. Both have been charged with unauthorized use of a pc.

Police mentioned on the time that the provincial authorities acquired reviews of spam textual content messages from a number of people who had scheduled their vaccine appointments, or accessed their vaccine certificates, by means of the provincial reserving system. 

Those “fraudulent spam” texts requested folks for his or her private data, mentioned OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson. 

In its assertion Friday, the ministry mentioned in over 95 per cent of the instances, “only names and/or phone numbers were impacted.”

The assertion says the vaccine reserving system is “regularly monitored and tested” by means of the Ministry of Health’s cyber safety protocols, and that the province is “confident” the system stays a safe instrument.