British Columbians polled about identity theft

The BCGEU, which crusaded against the outsourcing of medicare processing, leading to the USA Patriot Act inquiry, has commissioned a poll of British Columbians about privacy attituds. Almost 90% of those polled are deeply concerned about identity theft, among other things:

BCGEU: British Columbians deeply worried about identity .....:

"British Columbians deeply worried about identity theft, according to year end poll

Almost 90 per cent fear personal information will be misused and bills run up, crimes committed in their names

Close to nine out of ten British Columbians are worried they could be victims of identity theft because their personal information falls into the wrong hands.

That's one of the major findings of a year end survey to gauge British Columbian's views about information privacy carried out by the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union.

BCGEU president George Heyman says the poll shows widespread public unease about the identity theft phenomena.

'Obviously people are well aware of the problem, and they're concerned about safeguarding the privacy of their personal information,' Heyman says. 'Given the poll results, that deeply held anxiety obviously cuts across traditional political lines.

'Logically, you'd expect our provincial government would be moving to shore up protections to reduce the threat of identity theft and safeguard information privacy,' Heyman says. 'However, the Campbell government is moving in the opposite direction.'..."

Thanks to SANS PrivacyBits - Vol: 3, Issue: 1 for the pointer.