Report Reveals Nature Of Police Privacy Breaches

Facebook gossip, family and snoopiness seem to be the reasons why two comminications officers were terminated for privacy breaches by the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) on November 22, 2018. It is all contained in a report released by the Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. this week.

The nine page report by Ronald J. Kruzeniski, Q.C. Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner commends the MJPS for the actions it undertook once they became aware of the alleged privacy breaches. Actions which included not just a thorough investigation but also taking steps to contain the damage from the personal privacy breaches, inform the individuals who had their private information accessed inappropriately as well as steps to prevent a re-occurance and inform the public.

In the first privacy breach an individual identified only as "Employee A” in the report admitted they had accessed the file of an alleged young offender and shared information from the file with a third party over the social network Facebook.

Employee A’s actions were only discovered after the parent of the alleged young offender phoned on September 17, 2018 with concerns details had been inappropriately shared. An investigation showed Employee A had accessed the alleged young offender’s file and within a minute of logging off had provided details to a third party over Facebook but did not use a name.

When confronted with the allegations Employee A admitted to their actions.

An Example Of A Moose Jaw Police Service Report - MJ Independent File Photo

In the second privacy breach an individual only identified as “Employee B” was off duty and on October 2, 2018 had telephoned police dispatch for information on the plate number of a vehicle which had allegedly been in a hit and run accident with Employee B’s child’s vehicle.

When the on duty communications officer refused to provide the information because it was not work related Employee B said they would call back later. When they called back later they spoke to Employee A.

In the ensuing investigation MJPS was able to determine Employee B had used her access inappropriately on other occasions and as such notified the individuals whose privacy had been breached about what had occured. The investigation found Employee B had made their unauthorized queries because of “interest and curiosity” (snoopy).

“As part of its investigation into Employee A, on or about October 3, 2018, MJPS audited the system and found that Employee A had accessed the system for the license plate information (for Employee B) and attributed the search to someone else,” the report read. (Bold and italics added for emphasis)

“The Commissioner found that The Local Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act was engaged, and was satisfied with how the MJPS investigated each breach and the sanctions it applied to each employee in response,” the report additionally stated.

Neither employee faced criminal sanctions for their actions.

Read the entire report by clicking here.