Lake County data leak: Thousands of student records mistakenly released
School board attorney Scott Cole discusses a student data breach incident at Monday's meeting. Credit: Lake County Schools
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. - The Lake County School Board filed a lawsuit against a parent after an employee mistakenly shared the confidential education and disability records of approximately 47,000 students. The district is asking a judge for an injunction to force the permanent destruction of the files.
Lake County records lawsuit
What we know:
On Sept. 14, a parent requested public records from the district. An employee fulfilling the request on Oct. 23 accidentally uploaded eight unredacted files containing sensitive data instead of the redacted versions.
The files contained education records, individual educational plans and disability information for tens of thousands of students. School board attorney Scott Cole said Monday the mistake happened during a routine request and the district immediately contacted the parent to ask him to destroy the data.
District seeks court injunction
What we don't know:
It is unclear when the circuit court will rule on the district's request for an injunction. The school board is asking for the parent to permanently destroy the records across all storage locations and provide a sworn affidavit confirming the deletion.
Parent response to breach
What they're saying:
"In responding to a parent's public records request, a district employee, mistakenly emailed the parent a link that provided access to other students' records," Cole explained Monday. He added that the district's only interest is to protect the records from further disclosure.
According to the lawsuit filed Nov. 3, the parent's attorney told the district that his client had "100s of statutory violations in his hands." The attorney allegedly asked what the district could offer the parent in a settlement for him to destroy the documents and not disclose the information.
Scope of the disclosure
By the numbers:
The district initially thought about 1,800 records were involved in the data breach. The parent later posted on social media that he had access to over 47,500 records dating back to the 2023 graduating class, a figure the district has since confirmed as approximately 47,000.
Cole stressed Monday that only one person has the information right now. "Forty-seven thousand is a big number and it's certainly understandable why that number should concern parents," Cole said.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from the Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief filed Nov. 3 in the Circuit Court of the Fifth Judicial Circuit in Lake County, as well as a public statement made Monday by Lake County School Board Attorney Scott Cole.