Investigators looking into the sale of 41 high-capacity tapes
containing 77,000 personal medical files at a government auction in
British Columbia earlier this month have been able to ascertain
that it was not the B.C. Ministry of Employment and Investment's
policy to sell tapes.
But Chris Norman, executive director in the CIO's office in
B.C., would not say if the incident represents a breach of policy
rather than procedure. "That will be up to the investigation to
ascertain. But investigators have been able to ascertain that the
Ministry had a specific policy not to sell computer tapes," he
said.
The government is conducting an investigation in cooperation
with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC)
of B.C. "We expect to be able to report on that very soon, and the
findings will be made public," said Norman.
The Ministry did allow the sale of computer hardware such as
obsolete PCs in the past, he said, but a moratorium on the sale of
all computer equipment, including tapes, is in effect now pending
the results of the investigation.
"For PCs, the practice had been to destroy the hard drive or any
memory capacity, and then to sell the "boxes," said Norman, adding
that the province's computer asset disposal policies and practices
are being subjected to a careful review.
Ross Armstrong, senior researcher at London-based Info-Tech
Research Group., believes underfunding may have played a role in
the debacle. "Government IT budgets are strapped," said Armstrong.
"It is not an uncommon practice to sell used IT gear to maximize
its value b many organizations do this in many industries."
But with privacy legislation such as PIPEDA in effect, the
government must lead by example in implementing proper procedures
for safeguarding the sensitive personal information it collects on
Canadians, he said. "When people who set laws are violating laws,
there's obviously a real loss of taxpayer confidence," said
Armstrong.
It so happens the anonymous buyer of the tapes was honest in
this instance and turned them over to the Vancouver Sun when he
discovered they contained personal information. "But this raises
questions about what else may be going on out there that we don't
know about," said Armstrong.
Each province sets its own best practices for tape disposal,
said Gordon Smith, spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of
Government Services. "The government of Ontario has strong policies
and procedures for tape disposal. Tapes are never re-sold. They are
destroyed once they're no longer needed for business or archival
purposes," he said.
Back-up tapes are typically retained for about five to 10 years,
depending on the business requirements of the specific ministry, he
explained. "Tapes are typically destroyed by degassing,
demagnetizing and shredding them, which are requirements from our
audit side," he said.
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