The Ministry of Education has apologised after a technical breach with its SMART reporting tool exposed the assessment information of 276 students.
Deputy Secretary of Education Services Geoff Short said the issue was identified after the ministry was notified of "unexpected access" to assessment information.
"As soon as the issue was identified, the affected reporting function was disabled while the matter was investigated," Short said.
"A system update has now been implemented, and the reporting function has been restored.
"We are confident the issue has been resolved and will not recur."
Short said the problem occurred when a small number of users signed in using trial login details instead of their standard Education Sector login details.
The information that was able to be viewed was student names, class names and assessment scores, but did not include contact details, home addresses or dates of birth.
The ministry said it had contacted seven affected schools and was supporting them to communicate with parents and caregivers. It said schools that had not been contacted were not affected.
1News understands the affected schools were in Hawke’s Bay.
Short said the ministry was carrying out additional reviews to help prevent a similar issue from happening again.
"The Ministry has met its obligations under the Privacy Act. We take our responsibilities to protect personal information seriously and understand that schools, students and whānau trust us to keep this information secure," he said.
"We apologise for what has happened."
The SMART assessment tool, or Student Monitoring Assessment and Reporting Tool, was introduced in February, intended to provide parents and caregivers with consistent reporting across students' reading, writing and maths progress.
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