The owners of a local company believe they have found up to three boxes of ICBC papers containing sensitive information belonging to hundreds of B.C. drivers.
Olivia Gharakhanian said her family owns retail store Devon Shoes, which is moving into a new temporary location inside Metrotown mall in Burnaby.
The first thing they did when they got into the store on Thursday was find three boxes full of papers inside a cabinet.
“Once we looked into it there were ICBC papers, void cheques, bank account numbers, first names, last names, and addresses,” Gharakhanian said.
She also found deposit slips, car models, licence plate and decal numbers.
“It’s totally reckless," she told CTV News Vancouver.
“I think it’s ridiculous how someone can forget not one box but three boxes of real personal information.”
Gharakhanian said they have been in contact with the public auto insurer.
The owner of Perpetual Insurance, the company that previously worked out of the location, took responsibility for leaving the boxes behind.
After moving everything out of the temporary location, Ken Tam, says, “According to my staff out there, it was already empty when we left... We missed three boxes that were supposed to be shredded. It is obviously an oversight on our part. We will take full responsibility that may come our way, because it is our fault.”
ICBC is investigating the circumstances including interviewing brokers and staff.
“Failure to follow appropriate procedure for document handling has disciplinary ramifications that will be assessed after the investigation,” ICBC said in a statement.
The insurance provider said it is also attempting to recover the documents.
“We take the protection of privacy and information very seriously and will take appropriate action upon identifying the source of the breach.”
The Insurance Council of B.C. is also aware of the incident and may take further disciplinary action.
