The RCMP has tracked a data breach at the ICBC involving 65 victims, 13 of whom have links to the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) – which trains police officers, paramedics, and prison guards – to a series of arsons and shootings involving those people.
“We can now state the investigation revealed a link to an ICBC employee, who allegedly accessed personal information of 65 individuals, including the 13 identified victims. That employee, along with other individuals, is under continued police investigation”, said Chief Superintendent Janice Armstrong, operations officer for the Lower Mainland District Regional Police Service, in a statement.
RCMP Sergeant Peter Thiessen told the Globe and Mail newspaper that the adjuster obtained confidential data on the 65 individuals and passed that data on to others. “There were houses set on fire, there were houses shot up, there were cars shot up. Somebody could easily have been killed”, although no one was, he said.
The ICBC said the adjuster had been fired with no severance pay. “We have conducted a thorough internal and an independent external review of our systems as a result of the privacy breach and have taken steps to better guard against this type of incident from happening again”, said ICBC president and chief executive Jon Schubert.