In July Pearson began notifying 13,000 school districts and universities that its AIMSweb product was breached in November 2018. Pearson discovered the breach in March. We're keeping a running list of Illinois school districts known to be affected by the breach below.
Wall Street Journal: Pearson Hack Exposed Details on Thousands of U.S. Students
Techcrunch: Education software maker Pearson says data breach affected thousands of accounts in the US
Chicago Tribune: Security breach exposes personal information of more than 50,000 past and present Naperville-area students
The breach included AIMSweb 1.0 accounts going back to 2001 (and possibly longer) and included students' names, emails and some birth dates and student ID numbers. In some districts teacher and staff info was also breached. Here's one of the notification letters Pearson sent to school districts.
Chicago civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy has filed a class action suit against Pearson for this breach. If your child was affected, and you'd like to get in touch with the attorneys, you can email [email protected]. You can read the full legal complaint here.
In addition, according to the Chicago Tribune, "anyone interested in obtaining more information or wanting to set up free credit report monitoring should go to www.experianidworks.com/credit or call Pearson at 866-883-3309."
Read about Pearson's two-decade history of testing issues here via Fair Test.
Districts mentioned in media or publicly reporting breach
Was your district affected but you don't see it listed here? Let us know by emailing [email protected]
- Addison 4
- Algonquin 300
- Arbor Park 145
- Belvidere 100*
- Butler 53
- Canton 66
- Casey Westfield CUSD C-4
- CCSD 89 (Glen Ellyn)
- Central 301
- Chicago 299
- Dekalb 428
- Deerfield 109
- Diamond Lake 76
- Downers Grove 58
- Elmhurst 205
- Fremont 79
- Geneva 304
- Genoa-Kingston CUSD 424
- Glen Ellyn 41
- Grant Park 6
- Harlem 122
- Indian Creek 425
- Indian Prairie 204
- Joliet 86
- Joliet Township HS District 204
- Kaneland 302
- Kinnickinnick 131
- LaGrange Highlands 106
- Lake Park HS District 108
- Moline-Coal Valley 40
- Naperville 203
- North Suburban Special Education District
- Oak Grove 68
- Prospect Heights 23
- Rochelle 231
- River Trails 26
- Serena CUSD 202
- St. Charles 303
- Waukegan CUSD 60
- West Chicago 33
- Wheeling CCSD 21
- Wilmette 39
- Valley View 365U
*Not definitive but appears as item on Board of Education committee agenda