A Lantzville council member has lost a memory stick believed to hold sensitive and confidential municipal information spanning four years.
Coun. John Coulson informed city officials on June 7 that the stick was missing.
Anyone who has provided Coulson with sensitive and confidential correspondence, documents or information in the past four years is urged to watch for signs of unexpected or improper use of information, the District of Lantzville said in a statement.
It said the stick “may contain information about individuals in relation to the business of the District during a period between 2014 and 2018.”
Personal information could include subjects such as personnel matters, job applications, staff leaving the district, views on district matters, and bylaw enforcement and related disputes, it said.
“In particular, we encourage you to monitor your bank and credit card statements, and report any unusual activity immediately to your financial institution.”
Coulson could not be reached on Wednesday. Mayor Colin Haime referred questions to staff.
Trudy Coates, Lantzville’s director of corporate information, said that Coulson had not used the stick for a week or so prior to discovering it was missing. She does not know if the information on the stick was encrypted.
The stick was not supplied by the district, Coates said.
Citizens are asked to contact the district if they have questions. So far, there’s no evidence that the information has been accessed, Coates said.
Lantzville is focusing on identifying what information was on the stick and developing a list of anyone who might need to be notified that their personal information was on it, Coates said.
She does not know if the stick was being used off municipal hall property. “I’m assuming it had been. We are a very small municipality. The councillors don’t have offices here.”
Lantzville, with a population of 3,600, is between Nanaimo and Parksville.
The district will be “formalizing procedures into a policy to protect information carried on mobile devices,” the district said in its statement.
B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner was informed of the loss by the district.
Erin Beattie, communications director at the commissioner’s office, said when a privacy breach is reported, the office works with the affected organization to contain the breach, evaluate the risk and notify anyone who may be affected. The office does not comment on specific details of its investigations.
Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC, said he is “somewhat speechless that a person would lose a memory stick with that kind of information on it.”
Encrypting information would prevent not only leaks but people hacking into computers and getting information of such subjects as a bidding process.
“This is clearly something that should not have happened.”
In September 2015, the province reported to the privacy commissioner’s office that it had lost a hard drive containing information on 3.4 million B.C. and Yukon students and teachers.
A subsequent report by then privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denman said: “This report demonstrates that government must do more than just develop sound policy. It must enforce these policies more effectively. After issuing policies and training employees on how to comply with them, it is necessary to follow up to measure compliance.
“Periodic internal audits are an integral component of managing privacy.”
> On the web: Privacy commissioner’s report on privacy management in B.C.’s public sector: oipc.bc.ca/guidance-documents/1545.
