Texas Sues PowerSchool for Data Breach Affecting Nearly 900,000 People
Software company PowerSchool’s failure to protect the personal information of nearly 900,000 Texas schoolchildren and educators is a violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act, alleged Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in a lawsuit Wednesday.
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“For years, PowerSchool has misrepresented the nature and extent of its data privacy and security protections to Texas schools who entrust PowerSchool with their students’ and teachers’ highly sensitive personal information, including social security numbers and protected health information,” Paxton's complaint said. “In December of 2024, these failures resulted in a catastrophic data breach impacting over 800,000 Texas students and teachers.”
Paxton said PowerSchool profits off of the collected data, by using it to develop products and sell the data to third parties. The complaint asks the Texas District Court in Collin County to stop the software company from continuing to violate the laws and to pay monetary penalties for each violation.