Citizens Services Dept: GOVERNMENTRESPONDS TO PRIVACY INVESTIGATIONS VICTORIA The Provincial Government hasimplemented a number of changes to improve how it handles personal and privateinformation, Citizens Services Minister Ben Stewart announced today. Protection ofBritish Columbians private and personal information is a top priority for thisgovernment, Stewart said. We committed to improving the system and we haveput the policies and education programs in place to do that. Earlier this year,government received reports on three investigations that had been undertaken inresponse to a 2009 incident where police found records containing personalinformation on 1,400 clients of the ministries of Children and FamilyDevelopment and Housing and Social Development in the home of a governmentworker. The province sChief Information Officer and the BC Public Service Agency undertookinvestigations to determine how the privacy breach occurred and why severalmonths elapsed before senior government officials were informed and theaffected clients notified. The Office of theInformation and Privacy Commissioner also conducted an independentinvestigation. Following thedelivery of the two internal reports on Jan. 29 Stewart committed to takingaction within 90 days that included reviewing the recommendations anddetermining which ones would be implemented. Cross government implementationwas led by Deputy Minister to the Premier, Allan Seckel. Steps takenalready include: Centralizing responsibility for responding toprivacy breaches in the office of the Chief Information Officer. Implementing a new policy on criminal recordchecks for government employees. Putting in place a policy that deputy ministersand the head of the Public Service Agency must be notified whenever agovernment employee is arrested for, charged with or convicted of a criminaloffense. Beginningimmediately, a mandatory and compulsory government wide training program isbeing delivered that will ensure everyone working in the BC Public Serviceunderstands their roles and responsibilities in protecting citizens privacy.More extensive training will be delivered to employees who directly deal withconfidential information. British Columbiacitizens need to be confident that government will protect their privacy and weare working hard to build that trust, Stewart said. A specialcommittee of the British Columbia Legislature is currently reviewing theFreedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The committee is mandatedto release its report by May 31, 2010. The Jan. 2010 Privacy Breach Reports are available online at www.cio.gov.bc.ca/cio/priv leg/reports links.page As
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