*********************************************************
A spokesman for the Department of Health (DH) today (March 30) said that the Department is very concerned about a programme problem on the website of the School Dental Care Service (SDCS) (www.schooldental.gov.hk) which led to online data leakage. The Student Internet Service and the School Internet Service have been suspended until further notice.
The DH received a report from an SDCS online service user in the morning of March 26 that information of some other students had appeared after log-in to the Student Internet Service. After confirmation of the incident, the SDCS online services were immediately suspended at noon on the same day.
According to the DH's preliminary investigation, the incident might have been caused by a programme bug following the update of software on March 23. It was estimated that some personal and/or appointment information of 210 primary school students might had been disclosed to other concurrent users through the Student Internet Service from March 23 to 26.
"We attach great importance to the incident and have reported it to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. The DH is conducting thorough investigations with a view to avoiding the recurrence of similar incidents and will step up efforts in protection of personal data and privacy," a spokesman for the DH said.
"We are now contacting parents of the affected students through our School Dental Clinics on the incident and to express our apologies," the spokesman said.
Parents can contact School Dental Clinics by phone during office hours (www.schooldental.gov.hk/wsmile/clinicinfo_e.html), or through the 24-hour clinic hotlines (www.schooldental.gov.hk/wsmile/student/IndAppt) for appointment rescheduling and cancellation. Information on the clinics and hotlines can also be found in the SDCS Handbook for students.
The SDCS online services will resume once maintenance is completed.
Ends/Monday, March 30, 2015
Issued at HKT 17:20
NNNN
