Canada Student Loans Breach.....

This month this announcement was made by the Canadian Government:


Please be advised that an electronic storage device, also known as an external portable hard drive, containing personal information on 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers who were
clients of the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) from 2000-2006 has been lost from an HRSDC office in Gatineau, Quebec.

While there is no evidence at this time that any of the information has been accessed or used for fraudulent
purposes, this incident is being taken very seriously and the Office of the Minister has engaged the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Extensive and thorough search efforts have been undertaken and continue.

The external portable hard drive included:

   - personal information on 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers who were clients of the CSLP from 2000-2006.Student loan borrowers from the province of Quebec, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories during the same time period are not affected;   
- Student names, Social Insurance Numbers, dates of birth, contact information and loan balance of Canada Student Loan borrowers;
   - Personal contact information of 250 HRSDC employees;
   - No banking or medical information was included on the portable hard drive.


So here's my rant about it.........

Ask yourself this: Would you feel safe knowing that there is information possibly out there somewhere that could completely destroy your identity, everything you worked for and that someone could use to completely destroy your life?

Giving these things to the government is something people do and believe that they will be safe, trusted that our own government could protect it. The government needs to realize they made a HUGE mistake and fix the problems. Yes this information could have just been "misplaced" but it obviously means that they need to look at the way they do things so that this will never happen again.


The problem is that they don't have a sweet clue where this information went. It could have accidentally been thrown out, misplaced, stolen, anything. I don't think it is too soon to do anything, I think they waited too long to announce it. They tried to fix it first so it wouldn't have to go public but they obviously screwed up and they need to fix it! I've worked hard to keep my credit where it is and I would be completely devastated if someone used my information and did something wrong with it. It would destroy my life and just
thinking about the fact that it "could" be out there is enough to give someone nightmares. We aren't talking about a little bit of information, we are talking about people's personal information, info that the government is constantly telling people to safehold, don't leave lying around, make sure it's in a safe place- I've done that all of my life, worrying about my wallet being stolen or something like that and now it's not even like it's your keys or wallet and you can call the police and try to find it since it's the government and you have NO CLUE where your information is!


well let's think of it this way:

"identity theft in amounts of $100,000 or more can result in prison sentences of up to 20 years."

Can't put the entire government behind bars - So what should happen to the government who lost all of these people's personal information that could lead to the identity theft of all of these people? What happens now that all of these people have to make phone calls to ensure that things don't happen to us because of THEIR mistake? and what about the fact that we are all sitting here worried and freaked out that anything could happen to us all because they didn't do their job and protect information that we sign contracts saying they will protect it?

Big deal the government NOW knows they made a mistake, but it's a mistake that should have never been made in the first place and they need to somehow compensate for it.   If someone wronged you personally like this, a person or business, people would sue the crap out of them. Just because it is the government doesn't make it right to do nothing about it and allow them to get away with it. They should be persecuted, just like everyone else, to the full extent of their own laws! That's why they make laws isn't it?


The fact is still the government had a breach in contracts by loosing information they swear to protect. That's worth prosecuting. Maybe it is one person who was responsible for this one thing being lost, but it is the governments responsibility to make sure it is protected and having all of this information on something portable, that can be removed and now having it encrypted is careless and definitely a breach of their contract to anyone out there with a student loan giving them all of this information. They are being
falsely led that all of their information is completely protected and safe. They didn't live up to their contract, so why should people have to suffer for it.?