Ontario Privacy Commissioner Brian Beamish described the continued mishandling of personal information by the government and its agencies “disappointing” in a report by the Toronto Star on more than 200 privacy complaints that have come into his office over the past 18 months. Most recently, a misdialed fax machine led to a breach affecting hundreds in Hamilton. While most of the breaches are the result of human error or computer glitches, and intentional breaches are quite rare, that provides little solace to those affected. “There is a couple of types of carelessness,” Beamish said. “One is punching in a wrong number on a fax machine,” but another involves not taking enough time up front to do privacy by design.
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