With hundreds of jobs cut from HRSDC, who knows where the lost information is now? Cartoon by Joseph Destua
By Karen Nickel
Dialog Reporter
It was sometime on Nov. 5 in Gatineau, Quebec, that a USB stick was lost. It wasn’t until the next day that the information on it, including the personal information of 583,000 students who took out loans, was noticed to be missing. It was a further eight days until it was reported to the Privacy Commissioner. Now, there’s a class action law suit on behalf of students whose information is, currently, at large.
The “electronic storage device”, according to the Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP), contained over half a million students’, and two hundred and fifty department employees’, personal information; including student loan balances, social insurance numbers, birth dates and their contact information. The information contained on the USB stick pertained to student loans between 2000 and 2006. It has been determined that students in Quebec, Nunavut and the North West Territories are excluded from this breach of privacy advisory.
The CSLP released an official statement hoping to reassure students that there is, “…no evidence at this time that any of the information has been accessed or used for fraudulent purposes…” Further, “…this incident is being taken very seriously and the Office of the Minister (of Human Resources and Skills Development, Diane Finley) has engaged the (RCMP)”.
Minister Finley released a statement on Jan. 11, seeking to assure the students and employees affected, that they will be contacted as long as the Ministry has their current information on file.
Finley wrote, “I want all Canadians to know that I have expressed my disappointment to departmental officials at this unacceptable and avoidable incident in handling Canadians’ personal information. As a result, I have directed that departmental officials take a number of immediate actions to ensure that such an unnecessary situation does not happen again”.
On Jan. 17, Bob Buckingham, a lawyer from Newfoundland and Labrador, filed a class action lawsuit against the Attorney General. It claims eight causes of action, including: breach of privacy; breach of contract; and negligence, among others. Mr. Buckingham claims in his press release that he is filing “on behalf of 2 million Canadians” that he believes to be affected by this breach. He arrives at this number by factoring in the fact that student loan forms require not only the student’s information, but also that of parent’s financial information, as well as, partners and dependents. He claims that, “this violation is the largest known breach of privacy and loss of Canadian citizen’s personal information in the country’s history.”
To find out if your privacy is affected, call toll free (8am- 8pm EST.): 1-866-885-1866; or, outside of North America 1-416-572-1113; TTY: 1-800-263-5883.
