Business as usual in British Columbia; the government kind, that is. The Vancouver Sun reports today that the province's Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance hired as a caseworker a former "escort," who embezzled more than $30,000 dollar in rent subsidy checks intended for welfare recipients. She also reportedly tried to recruit welfare recipients as escorts. She was suSpended, paid restitution, and sentenced to 12 months in jail.

The revelations came about in an unusual way. The government agency - which at the time of the scam was named the Ministry of Human Resources, last May auctioned off surplus computer equipment, and 41 computer tapes, at an auction in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey. After the buyer discovered sensitive information on the tapes, he turned them over to The Sun. Included on the tapes were not only a six-page transcript of a disciplinary hearing between the embezzling escort and her ministry supervisor, but also, separately:

.....records on thousands of people's medical status -- including a listing of some people with HIV or mental illness -- and a record of whether they are considered fit for work. That file also contains social insurance numbers, provincial health numbers and other confidential information. Another file on the tapes contains a listing of the names, social insurance numbers and internal government file numbers for more than 30,000 refugees.

On Sunday, federal Immigration Minister Monte Solberg told The Sun he plans to launch an investigation to determine what led to those records being inadvertently released. B.C. Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis has also ordered an investigation into the matter, as has Labour Minister Mike de Jong, whose ministry oversees the auction where the tapes were sold.

Methinks The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance could use a bit of help in the IT department, and in upper management - that is, if it should not be abolished altogether. (What is their actual record of finding good work for people, and getting them off the dole, anyway? Why are they passing out government jobs to fraud-disposed escorts?) The cost of erasing the tapes, or simply destroying them, would seem far less than the potential liability of releasing such private data. The one question that most deserves an answer will probably never be answered. What experience did the embezzling welfare worker have to warrant being hired by the provincial government, other than employment as an escort?

TECHNORATI TAGS: WELFARE, EMBEZZLEMENT, BRITISH COLUMBIA, PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT, MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES, MINISTRY OF EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME ASSISTANCE, COMPUTER TAPES, CONFIDENTIAL DATA, PRIVACY, LIABILITY