negligent bc govt, private info

B.C. sold sensitive computer files, Breach leaked thousands of personal records
Times Colonist (Victoria), Jonathan Fowlie, CanWest March 04, 2006

VANCOUVER -- The B.C. government has auctioned off computer tapes containing thousands of personal records, including information about people's medical conditions, their social insurance numbers and their dates of birth.

Sold for $300 along with various other pieces of equipment, the 41 high-capacity data tapes were auctioned at a site in Surrey that routinely sells government surplus items to the public.

Included among the files were records showing certain people's medical status -- including whether they have a mental illness, HIV or a substance-abuse problem -- details of applications for social assistance, and whether or not people are fit to work.

The person who bought the tapes said he intended to sell them as blank tapes for profit, and only recently discovered they were filled with information. He gave the tapes to the Vancouver Sun out of concern that other information might not be properly destroyed, and did so on the condition of anonymity.

"This should never happen," Mary Carlson, director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C., said Friday. "There are dignity issues involved in a lot of these disclosures," she said, pointing to things such as HIV status and a need to apply for social assistance.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong, whose ministry oversees the auction process, said he has ordered an investigation into the breach. "It is completely unacceptable for information like this to be unsecured in the way this clearly is," he said. "People deserve to know [this] type of information is secure and kept private," he said.

In addition to records with social insurance numbers and medical conditions, there were also hundreds of what appeared to be caseworker entries divulging intimate details of people's lives. One of those entries details a letter from a woman whose daughter was sexually abused, and that provides the woman's name. "Re: her daughter sexually abused by a tenant living in the basement of her house," said the entry, which was logged in 1996. "No mental handicap RCMP involved."

Another file contained 65,000 names along with corresponding social insurance numbers, birthdays and what appeared to be amounts paid to each person for social support and shelter.

The files on the tapes appear to have been created between 1995 and 2001 and apparently came from the Ministry of Human Resources and the Ministry of Social Services.

On Friday, De Jong could not say what happened. "I want ministry officials to work closely with the privacy commissioner to do what can be done now to retrieve and secure the information and also to begin an exhaustive examination of how this happened," he said.