OTTAWA—The federal government reported 300 breaches of Canadians’ private information in 2014, including a dramatic robbery of a courier truck carrying passports in Venezuela last November, the Star has learned.

A courier truck leaving the Caracas airport was held at gunpoint on Nov. 11. Two packages containing 61 visa decision letters, including passports, were among the contents stolen.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the department transferring the passports from the visa office in Mexico City to Caracas, informed the privacy commissioner of the breach on Nov. 26 according to documents obtained under access to information law.

The Star requested an interview with the department on Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, the department issued a brief statement outlining the incident.

“(The department) has contacted affected applicants . . . (and) for approved applications, affected applicants have been or will be issued a replacement visa immediately once a new passport is submitted,” read the statement, sent by spokeswoman Nancy Chan.

“(Citizenship and Immigration) takes its privacy obligations very seriously.”

The robbery was one of the more dramatic incidents among 300 privacy breaches reported to Ottawa’s privacy watchdog by federal departments and agencies in 2014.

According to the privacy commissioner’s office, there were more than 3,100 privacy breaches affecting 725,000 Canadians between 2002 and 2012.

The Caracas robbery was the second theft of personal information to be reported last November. On Nov. 6, Employment and Social Development Canada reported the loss of 19 applications for funding under the New Horizon for Seniors program.

According to the department, the applications contained personal information of 124 individuals, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, emails, professions and birthdates.

The applications, stored in an unlocked briefcase, were left in a car by a Montreal employee. The car was broken into and the applications stolen.

“An internal administrative investigation was conducted and appropriate actions have been taken,” wrote spokeswoman Marie-France Faucher.

“A reminder has been sent to regional staff reconfirming appropriate measures to take when transporting personal information outside of the office.”

The two incidents show that “material” privacy breaches, defined by Ottawa as breaches involving sensitive personal information that could cause injury or harm to those affected, range from the serious to the mundane. The breaches can be as simple as misdirected mail, or as large scale as the alleged Chinese-backed hack of the National Research Council in July 2014.

Last May, the Conservative government introduced a requirement for agencies and departments to report such material breaches to the privacy commissioner and to the Treasury Board, the department responsible for the federal government’s privacy policies.

Given the voluntary nature of privacy breach reporting before the change, “material” privacy breaches over the past year could be even higher than the 300 reported.

Treasury Board secretary Yaprak Baltacioglu, in a briefing note obtained by the Star last year, wrote that the mandatory reporting requirements will allow the department to track and detect trends in federal privacy breaches.

But NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus accused the government of playing “loosey goosey” with Canadians’ sensitive personal information.

“We’ve had computers stolen or lost, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of people’s personal financial information disappeared, and for the longest time they weren’t even reporting these breaches to the privacy commissioner,” said Angus, the MP for Timmons-James Bay, on Wednesday.

“Who is establishing some level of accountability here in this government? Because the pattern seems to be repeated again and again.”

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Tobi Cohen, a spokeswoman for Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien, confirmed the office opened investigations into the two thefts in November. The office had closed the Caracas robbery investigation, Cohen said, but is still investigating the stolen Montreal files.

Cohen said the office could not comment further due to confidentiality provisions in the Privacy Act.







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