International Law

Incident: Tax files, private info turn up in Vancouver dumpster

By David T.S. Fraser

In case you needed further proof that you must shred all personal information that you're disposing. Loads of personal tax information has surfaced after a high-profile accountant in Vancouver chucked it into a locked dumpster outside his offices:

CTV British Columbia- Tax files, private info turn up in dumpster - CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television

... Many of the documents -- marked with phrases such as "personal and confidential" -- come from the office of Peter Roberts, a well-known accountant.

"Oh my gosh," said one of Roberts' clients, David Weinberg, whose name was on several files.

"I'll have him either return this to me or assure me that he will be changing his privacy practices going forward to assure that not just this but all of his clients' documents are properly shredded."

When reached by phone, Roberts said that he put a bag full of the documents in the dumpster on Saturday.

He said he doesn't own a shredder and believed the documents would be safe because the dumpster is secured by a padlock.

But to Vancouver's large and innovative homeless population, a lock isn't much of a safeguard....

Thanks to a regular reader from the west coast for pointing me to this incident.

Full post as published by The Canadian Privacy Law Blog on April 07, 2008 (boomark / email).