ONTARIO COMPUTER CONTAINING CREDIT CARD INFORMATION STOLEN FROM SCIENCE CENTRE http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1161856749703&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

Privacy office probes Science Centre theft

Oct. 26, 2006. 05:16 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

The Ontario Science Centre is apologizing to its members after a laptop containing information about some of them was stolen from its offices.

The Crown agency has sent a letter to members warning them to ``take appropriate steps” to secure their personal and credit-card information.

The province’s privacy commissioner said it is investigating the Sept. 18 theft.

Anna Relyea, of the Science Centre, told the Star this afternoon that the laptop was stolen from a locked office and contained information about Science Centre programs, including some registration data.

Relyea said the data was password-protected. She called the theft an "isolated incident."
Privacy commission spokesman Bob Spence said today that there were two groups of stolen data — one with just names and addresses, and another that included credit-card numbers, but he couldn’t say how many people were affected.

“Normally when we’re doing this kind of investigation, we’re not revealing a lot of information about what is happening during the investigation or during the review of the information,” he said.

Spence said the centre reported the theft to the privacy commissioner as required, which allows staff to help the affected agency take steps to deal with the theft of personal information.

“One of these is notification. Another is reviewing what has happened and trying to take steps from preventing it from happening in future,” said Spence.

Culture Minister Caroline DiCocco, the minister responsible for the centre, said today that the Crown agency had taken all the appropriate steps after the theft to protect its members.

“There’s always a concern when something like this happens,” said DiCocco.

“They certainly notified the people whose names may have been in the computer," the privacy commissioner said. "They notified the police.”

However, Opposition Leader John Tory said the Liberal government was not taking the theft of the personal information seriously enough.

“I think the first thing you could do, and you’ll never achieve perfection, is make sure security is better so that you don’t have laptops with this kind of sensitive information floating around to begin with,” Tory said.

“The notion that the credit-card numbers of thousands of Ontario residents would be out there in cyberspace, or elsewhere in somebody else’s hands, certainly requires a more urgent approach.”

NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the Liberals have failed to take seriously the trust the public has placed in them.

“We see evidence of personal information being lost or falling into the wrong hands, and the McGuinty government’s response is to say `not a problem,”’ he said.

“I think the (Liberal) government is failing to address and sustain that public trust.”

In the letter sent to members, Catherine Paisley, the centre’s director of education, said: "We deeply regret this situation and would like to assure you that we are taking immediate steps to review our security procedures.

“I would like to express my sincerest apologies for this breach of privacy.”