Federal credit protection 'not enough,' says lawyer

The St. John's lawyer filing a class action lawsuit over the student loan privacy breach earlier this month said the government needs to do much more following the announcement that the federal government would be providing six years of credit protection to the 583,000 people affected by the breach.

Bob Buckingham has filed the suit to represent people across Canada who has been affected.

The leaked information contains personal data, including social insurance numbers and student loan receipts.

"Initially, I thought it was a first good step, it was something they should have done in the beginning - they had two months to think about this," Buckingham said.

"And the other thing about this proposal is that it's just for six years, and the problems people could potentially face could go on for the next fifty years."

Michael Walsh, Newfoundland and Labrador spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Students, thinks it is a good first step, but not enough to make the victims feel secure.

"Some more can be done to give these individuals whose personal information went missing some peace of mind," Walsh said.

"And I think we need to take more steps so that fewer people are forced to share their personal information just to get a post-secondary education."

The information was kept on a hard drive that was reported missing on Jan. 11 from the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada offices in Gatineau, Que.