Mississauga school’s online class hacked with pornographic images, message about ‘kidnapping’
E-learning ended up being X-rated for some Grade 4 students in a virtual classroom at Chris Hadfield Public School after their online French class was hacked twice this week, once with pornographic images.
The Peel District School Board confirmed the disturbing incidents in an email to 680 NEWS.
“We can confirm that a class at Chris Hadfield Public School experienced two occasions where at least one unknown individual entered the online classroom without having access to the classroom link,” the board said in a statement.
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“We take all matters of online safety, student privacy and digital citizenship very seriously.”
The board says its IT department is investigating and the class has been moved to “another secure virtual learning environment for synchronous learning.”
The French teacher sent emails to parents notifying them of the incidents. 680 NEWS has obtained the emails. In one, the teacher noted that “some of the students did see some of the (explicit) images” during class on January 12.
1/ #BREAKING Peel District School Board confirms a virtual classroom at Chris Hadfield Public School was hacked twice this week. A parent of a grade 4 student in that class says this is the email sent to parents after the first incident when explicit pornographic video popped up. pic.twitter.com/0hO13KtM8M
— Michelle Mackey (@michellemackey) January 14, 2021
A parent at the school, who wished to remain anonymous, said the children were “pretty shaken up.”
“I was upset,” the parent said. “How did this happen? How are we going to prevent this from happening again?”
The day after, the parent tells me the class was hacked again. This time, an audio recording they believe was a man saying “let’s talk about kidnapping.” See part of email from day 2: pic.twitter.com/tua25iRmdP
— Michelle Mackey (@michellemackey) January 14, 2021
The next day it happened again. This time the parent says a disturbing audio recording of man interrupted the class.
“The person said something about kidnapping. Then the teacher changed the link and the person came back and said ‘let’s talk about kidnapping’ and I was like what? How in hell did this happen?”
“This cannot happen again,” the peeved parent added. “This is personal information. How far can this go? This is beyond a violation.”
