U.S. edtech giant PowerSchool has confirmed that 16,000 students in the United Kingdom had personal and sensitive data stolen during a December 2024 data breach.
This week, PowerSchool began notifying individuals outside of the U.S. and Canada who were affected by the breach. The incident, first confirmed by PowerSchool in January, saw hackers access the personal data of millions of students and teachers after using compromised credentials to breach the company’s customer support portal.
PowerSchool hasn’t confirmed how many international students have been affected. However, in an emailed statement to TechCrunch, PowerSchool spokesperson Beth Keebler confirmed that four schools in the U.K. were affected, with hackers accessing the data of “approximately 16,000 students.”
In a letter sent to impacted individuals outside of the U.S. and Canada, seen by TechCrunch, PowerSchool said that data accessed includes students’ contact information, dates of birth, limited medical data, and “other related information”.
Keebler told TechCrunch that “the information exfiltrated for any given individual varied across our customer base.” PowerSchool declined to name the U.K. schools impacted by the incident.
On the company’s incident page, which was offline at the time of publication, PowerSchool noted that it would not be offering credit monitoring services to data breach victims outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Lucy Milburn, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), told TechCrunch that it had not received a data breach report from PowerSchool.
Keeber confirmed the company had not filed a data breach report to the ICO, claiming that this is because PowerSchool “does not act as a data controller” — an organization that determines the purpose and means of processing personal data — under U.K. data protection law.
TechCrunch has reached out to the ICO with further questions about PowerSchool’s claim.
PowerSchool has not yet confirmed the total number of individuals affected by the December breach, despite telling TechCrunch that it had “identified the schools and districts whose data was involved in this incident.”
According to reports, the breach impacted the personal and sensitive data of more than 62 million students and 9.5 million teachers. PowerSchool has repeatedly declined to confirm whether this number is accurate, but on its website the company says its technology is used by more than 60 million students.
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