Misdirected fax saga continues

The Globe and Mail has been full of futher reports related to the CIBC misdirected faxes saga. Today, a Toronto Star columnist, and CIBC customer, replies to the bank's efforts:

TheStar.com - Trust misdirected at CIBC:

"CIBC, wake up. You can do a better job on privacy.

As one of your many customers, I appreciate getting a personal apology from your chief executive officer, John Hunkin - at least, in an open letter on the CIBC website.

This followed an earlier letter from chief privacy officer Ron Lalonde, who talked about what was done to safeguard customers' information after the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce learned that some faxes had been misdirected to a U.S. company in the spring of 2002.

'We notified our branches that information was being faxed to an incorrect number,' Lalonde said. 'We also contacted the owner of the company who had been receiving the faxes and elicited from him a commitment to shred all the faxes he had received and to notify us should he receive any additional ones.'

What about all the CIBC customers whose privacy had been breached? Didn't they deserve to know a U.S. business was privy to confidential details on their banking transactions?

And what about the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's office? Didn't it deserve to know about a potential violation of the act it administers, the Personal Information Privacy [sic] and Electronic Documents Act?

Apparently, you decided there was no need to notify customers or the privacy commissioner...."

For more coverage see:

• The Globe and Mail: CIBC criticizes man who got errant faxes
• The Globe and Mail: CIBC data okay in court, U.S. judge says
• Yahoo! News - Hunkin says CIBC will reimburse customers for losses from errant faxes
• The Globe and Mail: Hunkin says buck stops with him over CIBC's faxes fiasco
• CTV.ca CIBC exec apologizes to bank customers
• The Globe and Mail: Get me legal on one, PR on two

Update: April 18, 2005 - PIPEDA and Canadian Privacy Law: Privacy Commisioner of Canada releases her report on the CIBC faxing incidents