Privacy Breaches Make US Headlines

One of Canada's largest banks, CIBC, has been sued over the disclosure of customers' sensitive personal information to a third party in the US. The suit seeks damages of $9 million and claims breach of contract, breach of duty of care and a breach of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. For several years, unsecured fax transmissions, sent from bank branches and intended for the bank's central operations service group, were inadvertently sent to third parties in the US, including a junkyard in West Virginia. The transmissions included personal information such as names, addresses, bank account numbers and digital representations of personal signatures. The plaintiff claims that the bank had been informed of the problem on numerous occasions but took no steps to address it. Meanwhile, a theft of confidential personal information on a massive scale has been reported in the US. Criminals using stolen identities obtained personal information from ChoicePoint Inc, a spin-off company of the credit reporting agency Equifax, which holds over 19 billion public and private records. Previously stolen identities were used to create what seemed to be legitimate businesses seeking ChoicePoint accounts. The con artists then opened 50 accounts and received personal information on nearly 145,000 consumers, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, criminal records and credit reports. ChoicePoint has reportedly mailed notification letters to the people whose privacy is known to have been compromised, it is re-screening its 17,000 business customers, and it is revamping its verification process. One man has been sentenced to 5 ½ years in US federal prison in connection with the scheme. A California woman has filed a law suit for fraud and negligence against ChoicePoint and is seeking class-action status. In the view of US commentators, this type of breach has exposed the shortcomings of existing laws governing consumer privacy and has resulted in a call for the update and nationalization of the patchwork of federal legislation, and often inconsistent State laws, that oversee the commercial collection and distribution of information. For the text of the CIBC lawsuit: http://www.cacounsel.com/CIBC%20Class%20Action%20Claim.pdf. For news stories about ChoicePoint: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y5BF240AA; http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2CF120AA; or http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2EF110AA. Summary by: Clare McCurley