Sensitive info. of 15 students went out via email

Sensitive information of 15 students who attend the University of Waterloo was emailed out to a list of 2,000 students earlier this week.

One of the emails contained banking information, while another two emails had a home address or mailing address in it.

The rest of the emails, sent Wednesday, included information such as names and student numbers.

A university official tells 570 NEWS they realized relatively quickly what happened and took steps to make sure no more emails were sent.

"The students whose information was released have been contacted, so they can take any and all necessary steps. We've also reached out to all the recipients of the emails, to make them aware of the error and ask that they delete any information they were mistakenly sent," said Matthew Grant, UW's Director of Media Relations.

Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner has also been notified of the data breach.

Grant says the breach was the result of human error. "We sincerely regret the mistake, have apologized to the people impacted and taken several steps to try and ensure this doesn't happen again,"

They have reviewed procedures with staff in the department where the breach occurred. Grant says they have also put in different software settings on the system they are using.