Privacy in Banking Industry :: essays research papers

How much do trust your bank or other institutions that have access to your financial and personal information? It may be time that all Canadians ask themselves this important question. This is a major issue in today’s world. We are living in the Information Age, and with all the technological advances we experience daily, having access to any kind of information is literally at yours and everybody else’s fingertips. This paper will focus on one of the most significant issues in the news recently that have sparked national interest, which is the issue of Privacy Laws in Canada, specifically within the Banking industry. Privacy issues have taken centre stage in Canada in recent weeks with the public's attention focused on the major privacy breach at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. As of February 4, 2005, CIBC is now facing a $9 million class action lawsuit from customers whose confidential RRSP and other personal and financial information was made public. A Toronto law firm has filed the suit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, after revelations that CIBC had been faxing thousands of their client confidential personal information to unauthorized third-parties and individuals, including a now-famous junkyard in West Virginia. The suit alleges CIBC sent client and other applications over unsecured fax lines to the junkyard between 2002 and 2004 . The documents contained highly personal information including names, addresses, phone numbers, social insurance numbers, bank accounts, GIC numbers and amounts, as well as client credit information. One of people that received this information w as a businessman from West Virginia. Over the past two years, he identified more than 350 Canadian phone numbers that have sent faxes to his fax machine, all of which he believes are CIBC branches. He claims he advised the CIBC of the problem several times, but the faxes continued to come . These CIBC clients entrusted the bank with their sensitive personal information in order to feel secure and to obtain the peace of mind that their financial affairs were protected by a well respected Canadian Bank. The financial information dealt particularly with RRSP plans and other investments which the clients rely on and save for in their retirement years. Rather than bringing them peace of mind that their financial affairs were protected, thousands of people now find that their sensitive information has carelessly been disclosed to unauthorized third-parties and possibly many other random unauthorized civilians.