Guest columnist for Canadian Mortgage Trends Justin Beadle recounts finding shared hard drives belonging to mortgage brokers open on a hotel WiFi network, giving access to customers’ mortgage applications to anyone with a networked computer. The experience “highlighted a major issue—the responsibility to protect personal information,” Beadle writes. With the growing illegal data trade, a breach such as this one could mean identity theft for customers. Proposed legislation would require companies to inform the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada of this type of incident, prompting Beadle to encourage brokers to “work towards industry excellence by fully adopting privacy protection in all its forms.”
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