Interior Health has concluded a review of a privacy breach that came to light as part of RCMP investigations and arrests in the Lower Mainland in June and September of this year and involved the personal information of about 500 current and former employees.
The review, which spanned two months, was unable to determine how the breach occurred, or whether the information was accessed by an individual or individuals internal or external.
However, as Vice President for Human Resources Mal Griffin explains it was able to identify a likely timeframe of December 2009 when unknown access to an IH employee database appears to have occurred.
“Those were the employee records that would have been most likely to have been breached and fortunately we didn’t find any evidence that they were. But we feel that it’s our responsibility that our past and current employees just remain extra diligent.”
The database contained the personal information of all individuals employed with IH between January 2003 and December 2009
“Recognizing that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in Canada, at Interior Health we are doing our part by continually monitoring and enhancing our systems and processes,” says Griffin.
“What we have in place today is far more advanced than in 2009. Like other organizations, we’ve changed our practices, enacted more stringent privacy practices, and are using a diverse range of technologies and security mechanisms to ensure the safety, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information.”