The B.C. Ministry of Education ignored its own policies and violated privacy law when it misplaced an unencrypted portable hard drive containing personal information on 3.4 million B.C. and Yukon students and teachers in 2011, a new report says.

Privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham said ministry staff neglected to protect the contents of the mobile hard drive with a password, failed to store the drive in an approved warehouse, and kept no record of the drive’s contents or where it was located.