While the reports of data breaches are probably only a fraction of the real number of times your personal data has been stolen from companies the fact that it happens is almost an accepted fact. However there is a far worse type of use of your personal data that we don’t hear about, except maybe from those “kooks”. It is also the scenario that many security minded computer experts worry about as we try to move more and more of our data into those large corporate databases in the sky.
Whether it being health companies turning down applicants based on databases searches or data sharing with other companies we can never be sure that our personal data isn’t being misused. Now before your start making up that tinfoil hat for me to wear you might be wise to first take into account a news story out of Vancouver, British Columbia.
It appears that the province’s own insurance company, Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC), has been found to be checking the accident claims histories of jurors in a recent civil court case. This checking of jurors is a total breach of the province’s freedom of information and privacy laws. It has also prompted the judge, Justice Malcolm Macaulay, to schedule a special hearing with ICBC’s corporate lawyer and the defense lawyer. At question here according to the judge is whether ICBC has done the same thing in the past and why it was even doing it in the first place.
On the fourth day of the trial, with the jury absent, the judge was told that a settlement had been reached.
What came next, however, staggered the judge.
Scott Macfarlane, corporate counsel for the insurance company, asked the judge for permission to address the jury, saying he wanted to tell them that some of their claims histories had been disclosed to defence counsel.
When the judge asked if it was standard practice for ICBC to check jurors’ driving records, Macfarlane said it was the only incidence he was aware of, but he promised the court there would be a review of the corporation’s files.
Source: Vancouver Sun
