Privacy commissioner says changes needed after highway worker snoops on driver

REGINA – Saskatchewan’s privacy commissioner says the Ministry of Highways needs to take responsibility after a worker snooped on a driver.

Commissioner Gary Dickson was called after a traffic officer with the transport compliance branch had an incident with another driver while heading to work in 2010.

Get daily National news

Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Dickson says in a report that the traffic officer wanted to know why the other driver was upset, so he looked up the driver’s personal information on the Saskatchewan Government Insurance database.

The officer contacted the driver, and the driver then complained to SGI and the RCMP.

SGI apologized to the driver, but Dickson says it should have been the highways department that took responsibility for the privacy breach.

Dickson says officials took some steps, including restricting the worker’s access to the SGI database, but says the ministry needs to do more to stop it from happening again.