Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the loss of personal information is completely unacceptable.
That is why we have taken measures to ensure that such things do not happen again.
The matter has been referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and it will decide how and when to proceed with respect to this matter.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner is investigating, and the HRSDC officials have been instructed by the minister to provide their full co-operation, as we have outlined at committee.
Individuals whose information was involved were contacted by the department, and public notice was given to all Canadians, to reach those whose contact information was no longer valid, to answer the member's question directly.
All affected social insurance numbers are being annotated by the Social Insurance Registry so that at any time a request to modify the SIN record or replace a SIN card is made, agents will ask for additional information and photo identification.
An agreement has been signed with Equifax Canada so that affected clients can request that a notation be placed on their credit files free of charge.
What does this mean? This is to protect credit ratings for those students whose information went missing. When creditors view a credit file with the client's consent, they will see an alert that will advise them to look for additional proofs of identity. This enables the creditor to confirm the identity of the individual they are communicating with, and helps protect individuals from having accounts opened or their names used.
We have implemented stricter security protocols to prevent such things from happening again.
Officials have been instructed to implement disciplinary measures for staff up to and including termination should the strict code of privacy and security not be followed and the new measures include the prohibition of portable hard drives in all departmental offices. Unapproved USBs will not be connected to the department's networks. Mandatory training for all employees regarding the proper handling of sensitive data is being implemented and new data loss protection technology is being developed to control and prevent future sensitive information from going amiss.
These measures are being implemented in order to prevent such an occurrence in the future.