{"id":6127,"date":"2013-02-06T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6127"},"modified":"2013-03-05T12:39:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T20:39:58","slug":"government-faces-heat-after-student-loan-privacy-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/02\/06\/government-faces-heat-after-student-loan-privacy-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"Government faces heat after student loan privacy\u00a0breach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those affected by the student loan privacy breach announced on Jan. 11 are organizing and demanding government accountability.<\/p>\n

A Facebook group called Student Loan Borrowers Affected by the HRDSC Privacy Breach, comprised of 2,459 borrowers as of January 31, has formed, with more than 250 of them signing a letter released on January 28.<\/p>\n

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Those affected by the HRSDC privacy breach are organizing to be heard. (photo by Andy Whiteley)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The letter expresses concerns over Human Resources and Skills Development Canada\u2019s (HRSDC) latest solution to the breach, an offer of a free fraud alert flag provided by credit bureau Equifax, something HRSDC said normally costs $5.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat HRSDC purchased from Equifax was a unique solution that was designed specifically for this particular incident,\u201d says Alyson Queen, HRSDC communications director. \u201cIt\u2019s not the free service. This is added for six years. We\u2019re currently trying to work with other authorized financial institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

On January 23, two days before HRSDC began offering fraud alerts through Equifax, Canada\u2019s other national credit bureau, TransUnion, began charging $5 to enable fraud alerts. Both bureaus offer credit-monitoring services starting at $14.95 per month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t afford the $30 to $40 per month in fees for credit monitoring packages from both bureaus,\u201d says UBC grad Nick Hall. \u201cThose affected should not be out of pocket for the way the government has mishandled their information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many borrowers are still waiting on promised correspondence from HRSDC containing information on credit-protection services offered and further information about what to do next. When one Facebook group member asked if anyone had received a letter, not one of the 70 respondents had.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe letters are going out for everyone for whom we have current contact information,\u201d says Queen. \u201cThe department stopped sending letters for a short period of time, just so that any future letters that were being sent would have information on the credit protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prince Edward Island postsecondary student Amanda Thoy started the Facebook group on January 12, hoping to provide a forum for those affected to voice concerns. The group grew quickly and Thoy struggled to keep up with membership demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have now become more of an awareness group speaking out against HRSDC,\u201d says Thoy, asserting the department\u2019s dealings with the public had not been honest. \u201cMany Canadians are still not aware this breach has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

On November 5, 2012, an HRSDC employee discovered a hard drive containing the personal information of 583,000 student loan borrowers was missing. The public was notified 67 days later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those affected by the student loan privacy breach announced on Jan. 11 are organizing and demanding government accountability. A Facebook group called Student Loan Borrowers Affected by the HRDSC Privacy Breach, comprised of 2,459 borrowers as of January 31, has formed, with more than 250 of them signing a letter released on January 28. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-february-6-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6127"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6464,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions\/6464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}