My intention today was to write more about our weekend road trip to the U.S. and all the wonderful adventures we had. Yesterday I got a letter from Chrysler Financial so disturbing, I had to write about it first. I believe they wrote the letter only, because of the current privacy laws. I am sure if this incident had happened in the past, I never would have heard a word from them.
One of the highest priorities at Chrysler Financial is our focus on your privacy and the protection of your personal information. It is for this reason we are writing to you today to notify you of a recent incident we had with the transfer of certain customer information stored on a data tape to a licenced third party credit reporting agency. On March 12, 2008, we were notified by United Parcel Service (”UPS”) that a data tape (the “Data Tape”) sent by Chrysler Financial containing certain customer information was destroyed or lost in transit and never arrived at the agency. The Data Tape cannot be easily accessed and requires specialized software and equipment to read, but it did contain some personal information that Chrysler Financial had obtained from you (most importantly, name, address, and social insurance number).
Chrysler Financial, in co-ordination with UPS, is conducting a thorough investigation but at this point in time the Data Tape has not been located. Having said that, we also have no reason to suspect that an unauthorized individual has actually retrieved and is using the personal information contained on the Data Tape, which we reiterate is not readily accessible. Nonetheless, as a precautionary measure we are alerting you to this recent incident so that you may be watchful for signs of any possible misuse of your personal information by an unauthorized recipient.
We apologize for any inconvenience or alarm this may cause you. Chrysler Financial can confirm that this has not happened before within our quality control processes and, since the incident, we have put into place additional measures with this and other third party agencies to ensure it will not happen again. Chrysler Financial has also, n a voluntary basis, disclosed this incident to the federal Privacy Commissioner’s Office and the applicable provincial privacy offices.
We appreciate your business and want yo assure you that Chrysler Financial remains committed to providing exceptional customer service while enforcing the strictest of privacy measures.
It is signed by their General Counsel.
Many people do not enter contests and sweepstakes, especially online, because they are afraid of identity theft. They do not want to put their personal information “out there”. You already are “out there”. You may not bank online, but your bank is connected to the Internet. Your sensitive personal information is being sent around by various financial institutions.
There is nothing on a standard entry form that some one couldn’t easily find about you in the phone book or via a Google search. I estimate I have filled out over half-a-million entry forms online over the past seven years and I have had no fear of someone using that data subvertly. This however is another case. Thankfully, late last year we purchased Identity Theft Shield (an insurance-type service protecting us from identity theft), so I have nothing to worry about, but what if we didn’t have it?
I will be contacting their General Counsel and I will continue to enter online, worry-free.
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