P.E.I. schools get lesson in 'dangers of reply all'

The P.E.I. Public Schools Branch has changed its Google for Education portal settings, after a studentapparently used reply all, sendingsong lyrics to every teacher and student in the system.

On Friday, thestudentresponded to an email sent in the spring that explained how to back up Google for Education accounts,said Public Schools Branch director Parker Grimmer.

That response, sent as a reply-all note, contained song lyrics with expletives that were partially censored.

It appears to be an unfortunate case of the dangers of reply all.- Parker Grimmer

"It probably wouldn't have been content that was appropriate for all audiences," said Grimmer.

While all students from kindergarten up have accounts and could have received the email, Grimmer saidmany of the younger students would not be using their accounts yet and would not have seen it.

'A learning opportunity'

Grimmer told CBC News that school officials have spoken to the student.

The settings on the Public Schools Branch account have since been changed to prevent this happening again.

"It appears to be an unfortunate case of the dangers of reply all," said Grimmer.

He added while he would rather the incident had not happened, it does represent a learning opportunity about email security.

"I think our work movingforward is definitely going to be working with students that received the email... we'll have a process involved for supporting and helping all students involved in this."

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