The third party agency must ensure that all information received from HRDC or from other sources to an HRDC client (student loan borrower) is retained on file as CONFIDENTIAL and NOT RELEASED to any third party other than HRDC, the borrower, or an authorized third party. This is one of the requirements of the privacy act.

 Information sent to the borrower from the third party collection agency by electronic media, such as information by fax,  or left on a telephone answering machine (or voice mail) can be accessed by a third party and directly result in a violation of the Privacy act. In order to ensure compliance to the Privacy Act, the collection agency is required to have the borrower's signed written authorization to release information by electronic media.

 Collection agencies are not permitted to use the Internet as a communication method with borrowers. This form of communication is not secure and is therefore prohibited by the privacy policy.

Johnny the financial disclosure sheet requests financial information from the spouse of the borrower as well as the borrower.  Also when filing a consumer proposal the spouse’s income and asset data is included.  So HRDC has a number of ways to obtain data on an individual who was not a signature to the loan contract.  What if this information is given to a third party?

I did call the privacy office and the person I talked to said the governement had certain rights to release information to collect a debt.  My interpretation of the privacy act is that it is another office in Canada that offers an appearance of accountability without actually doing so.  Since there can be no damages recovered if there is a violation there is little incentive to file a complaint.  If you do file a complaint there will be an investigation which takes a year and after this you will receive a letter explaining the action taken.  Most likely the department will be cited and that is the extent of it.

The auditor general has cited HRDC a number of times for widespread accounting problems and laxness with social security numbers and nothing has been done.  The auditor general only makes general recommendations and does not investigate specific complaints and so again there is no mechanism for accountability.  It’s just a whining exercise.

I like the joke about oil in Alberta and dipsticks in Ottawa as that is about the most accurate word I’ve seen to describe these morons.

 Mersan,

 This information is not allowed to be distributed to any third party without your written consent. If you filed an assignment in bankruptcy, then your spouse's information is only relevent to the bankruptcy and cannot be distributed to any third parties. That information is protected. So, while you are part of bankruptcy proceedings, and the trustee holds data on your spouse, then this information cannot be exchanged  unless he or she is responsible for the debts included.

 When you contacted the office re the privacy act, they told you that the government(s) have rights to release information concerning the collection of a debt. The information that they exchange is only your information to their third party sector that is assisting them to collect the debt, you see. So, if the HRDC is referring your CSL to a third party agency, then the information that HRDC will exchange "to aid" the collection process is location information, details from the original loan agreement, next of kin identity and location in the event skip locating is necessary, etc.

 In light of your response concerning the prohibitions and breech of privacy, yes, I agree with you. Rules tend to get broken for one reason or another and it seems that little can be done other than lodging a complaint to have it tossed in a trash bin somewhere.

 Collection agencies use every bit of information they can muster to fulfill their mission. If they were to call your bank and ask for you personal information, the bank is not allowed to give it out - or your spouse's information for that matter. Sometimes, they do find holes where information can be leaked. No system is perfect.

 Johnny

 To add more ...

 Collection agencies have access to credit reports through the bureau(s). When a collector discloses your personal credit information to you, it is actually an offense because there is a non-disclosure rule in effect. In other words, a colelctor is not allowed to reveal your credit information that they acquire form the bureau to you. The collectors are not allowed to disclose verbally or by transcript. So, if you go into an agency to make a payment and ask to see your credit history that they have on you, they cannot show it to you - or release what reflects on it.

 Also, if the HRDC wants your employment information and such, how easy would it be for them to get hold of it? They mandate that student borrowers supply pay stubs, financial disclosure, tax assessments, etc for certain reasons. If there were no privacy and protection of confidential information acts then all the hRDC would have to do is call their CCRA office and scrub for information. HRDC and CCRA are in kinship with one another.  

Thanks for the reply.

In my case I had been making regular payments for about 5 years when I was informed in 1998 they were going to sue me.  The year I went into default I only made about $3000 but no interest relief as I was in the US.  I never missed a payment when I started paying in 1994.  Granted I was only paying about $150 Canadian.  But my total earnings for 1990 through 2000 was only about $70,000 and some years I only made about $5000 or so. I had no assets they could take.  I also had to pay health insurance out of that..  In 2000 when I submitted my financial data for the consumer proposal I sent them my total income history as compiled by social secuirty as well as pay stubs.  I was making about $500 a month after taxes and they wanted $550 of that.  So as I asked Claude at HRDC what do these financial disclosures have to do with anything as they do not base their payment assessment on them?  They did have my wife’s income history and that is what their assessment was based on. 

I discovered that they had “lost” a large percentage of my payments when I accidentally was sent what appeared to be private communication between a paralegal at justice and the attorney that does the recruiting for them in the US.  The opening sentence states that “please be advised that the above noted debtor has contacted a number of offices within our client’s department demanding a statement of account.”  Why was a US debt collector told that I was calling HRDC trying to get an interest statement?  Considering there are still huge irregularities with my account and this attorney was part of the chain along which payments were sent.  I wrote the attorney general about this issue as a possible violation of the privacy act last fall and after about 3 months I got a response from an attorney in consumer litigation where she said that they could provide info to the DC but avoided any discussion of the problem of the phone calls.  To me it sounds like an alert to the DC to be diligent as I was asking for a statement of account. 

I have almost enough material for a novel.

Cheers