How much do trust your bank or other institutions that have access to your financial and personal information? It may be time that all Canadians ask themselves this important question. This is a major issue in today’s world. We are living in the Information Age, and with all the technological advances we experience daily, having access to any kind of information is literally at yours and everybody else’s fingertips. This paper will focus on one of the most significant issues in the news recently that have sparked national interest, which is the issue of Privacy Laws in Canada, specifically within the Banking industry.
Privacy issues have taken centre stage in Canada in recent weeks with the public's attention focused on the major privacy breach at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. As of February 4, 2005, CIBC is now facing a $9 million class action lawsuit from customers whose confidential RRSP and other personal and financial information was made public. A Toronto law firm has filed the suit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, after revelations that CIBC had been faxing thousands of their client confidential personal information to unauthorized third-parties and individuals, including a now-famous junkyard in West Virginia. The suit alleges CIBC sent client and other applications over unsecured fax lines to the junkyard between 2002 and 2004 . The documents contained highly personal information including names, addresses, phone numbers, social insurance numbers, bank accounts, GIC numbers and amounts, as well as client credit information. One of people that received this information was a businessman from West Virginia. Over the past two years, he identified more than 350 Canadian phone numbers that have sent faxes to his fax machine, all of which he believes are CIBC branches. He claims he advised the CIBC of the problem several times, but the faxes continued to come .
These CIBC clients entrusted the bank with their sensitive personal information in order to feel secure and to obtain the peace of mind that their financial affairs were protected by a well respected Canadian Bank. The financial information dealt particularly with RRSP plans and other investments which the clients rely on and save for in their retirement years. Rather than bringing them peace of mind that their financial affairs were protected, thousands of people now find that their sensitive information has carelessly been disclosed to unauthorized third-parties and possibly many other random unauthorized civilians.
Fraud is one of Canada's most severe acts of financial criminality as the economic impact of this crime could potentially handicap an entire society. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Annual Statistic Report (CAFC), a report established to monitor fraud with the aid of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Competition Bureau of Canada, it reported an annual loss of 74 million dollars affecting over 14,472 victims (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, 2014). Given this alarming statistic, it is worrisome that we as a society still ignore or turn a blind eye towards those who commit fraud as seen in the low conviction (Canada Revenue Agency, 2014), and focus our efforts on petty thefts as seen with the high rate of convictions
One year ago, on September 8, 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Wells Fargo Bank $185 million, alleging that more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards were opened or applied for without customers' knowledge or permission between May 2011 and July 2015. This essay will discuss the Wells Fargo scandal by explaining how the event happened and describing how the organization approached handling a response to the crisis. This will be seen, firstly by describing the how the scandal happened, and what were the causes, secondly by discussing the reaction of the company in front of the situation, how they dealt with the crisis and then
Weld, L. G., Bergevin, P. M., & Magrath, L. (2004). Anatomy of a financial fraud. The CPA
As we move through a typical day, this information is collected in thousands of ways. Charles Duhigg’s article “How Companies Learn Your Secrets” describes the collection, purchase, storage, and use of our personal information by the major retailer, Target. We all should know that we have agreed to the storage and sharing of our personal spending habits. The policies are disclosed in the Privacy Agreement of the stores shopper’s card, which most of us have.
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
Constitution, the founding fathers recognized that citizens in a democracy need privacy for their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects.’ That remains as true as ever, but our privacy laws have not kept up as technology has changed the way we hold information.”
Solove, Daniel J. “5 Myths about Privacy” Washington Post: B3. Jun 16 2013. SIRS. Web. 10
Privacy in the Workplace Introduction Technology has developed in leaps and bounds over the past few decades. The case is that the law always has difficulty keeping pace with new issues and technology and the few laws that are enacted are usually very general and obscure. The main topic of this paper is to address the effect of technology on privacy in the workplace. We have to have an understanding of privacy before trying to protect it. Based on the Gift of Fire, privacy has three pieces: freedom from intrusion, control of information about one's self, and freedom from surveillance.1 People's rights have always been protected by the constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures".
LeRoux, Yves. "Privacy concerns in the digital world." 03 Oct 2013. Computer Weekly. 24 April 2014 .
Are the benefits of electronic communication at the expense of our privacy? How does the Internet affect the availability and use of our personal information? The Internet brings another dimension to the issue of privacy. Whether you are voting on-line or buying a book from Amazon.com you must consider how much personal information has been collected about you, with or without your consent, and how it can be used. Policies governing privacy on the Internet are still not clearly defined and many on-line users do not understand how the information they provide will be used. How much...
The world erupted in outrage following revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the extent of surveillance perform by the National Security Agency. Privacy becomes one of the hottest topic of 2013 and was chosen by the world’s most popular online dictionary, Dictionary.com, as the Word of the Year. However, the government is not the only one that conduct data gathering and surveillance. Employers often monitor their employees, and businesses collect data on theirs customer. The morality of these practices is a topic that generates heated debate.
Perhaps the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it best when he claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” Virtually everyone has a smart phone and everyone has social media. We continue to disclose private information willingly and the private information we’re not disclosing willingly is being extracted from our accounts anyway. Technology certainly makes these things possible. However, there is an urgent need to make laws and regulations to protect against the stuff we’re not personally disclosing. It’s unsettling to think we are living in 1984 in the 21st century.
This system helps all of these banks provide financial secrecy which is that only you and your banker would legally be allowed to know the financial activity within your account. The financial secrecy, completely different from financial privacy, includes many regulations to maintain this asset of secrecy. For example, many banks would n...
Privacy is the condition where someone personal information can not be documented and be used by others (Parent, 1983). Privacy has been and continues to be a significant issue of concern for both current and prospective electronic commerce customers. The foll...
C.) Although some personal information exposure is preventable by not uploading it online, much isn't. During online payment, personal information has to be issued in order to make the payment. Therefore, further protection acts have to be implied. These include...