GN needs to protect Iqaluit’s mail: privacy commissioner
Graham Steele says Health, Finance departments should review mail security
Nunavut’s Health and Finance departments need to review how they handle Iqaluit residents’ sensitive mail after a report by Nunavut Information and Privacy Commissioner Graham Steele flagged the departments as not making reasonable security arrangements to reduce the risk of misaddressed or mis-delivered mail. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Nunavut’s Health and Finance departments need to do more to protect Iqaluit residents’ sensitive mail from getting lost or falling into the wrong hands, says Nunavut’s information and privacy commissioner.
Commissioner Graham Steele issued a report Tuesday on the Government of Nunavut’s handling of the Canada Post addressing change in Iqaluit late last year.
Ministers responsible for the departments to whom Steele made recommendations — Family Services, Health, and Finance — legally have 90 days to respond to his findings.
Steele said he hopes the departments move quickly to adopt his recommendations.
“I have always thought that 90 days was far too long, and especially in a case like this where I feel that they’re letting the time slip by,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Steele’s report was prompted by his concerns over the security of sensitive mail following the opening of a second Canada Post office in Iqaluit in October 2023.
The new office opening required every city resident to change their mailing address, from a post office box number to a civic address associated with a new box number.
“In the past, Iqalummiut who moved within the city had no need to change their mailing address because their box address stayed the same,” Steele wrote.
“The addressing change, in contrast, is something that was imposed on all Iqalummiut. Their mailing address changed even though they did not move.”
Last fall, Canada Post implemented automatic mail forwarding for one year, Steele said. That gave the GN a grace period to do what needs to be done to ensure it has collected everybody’s correct address.
Automatic mail forwarding ends Oct. 31 and that’s when “the GN will find out how ready it really is,” Steele wrote in his report.
“That’s really the deadline that the GN should be working towards,” Steele said.
“If they don’t have everybody’s correct address by that date, then a lot of mail is going to be going to the wrong place.
“They’ve already let half a year go by since the addressing change, and they shouldn’t let another 90 days go by without doing anything because time is ticking and they need to get busy collecting the correct addresses.”
Steele reviewed the way four GN departments handle specific privacy-sensitive mail:
- how Health mails out health insurance cards;
- how Finance mails payroll information and pay slips;
- how Family Services mails income assistance information; and
- how Human Resources handles mail concerning employee discipline.
Steele found the Health and Finance departments have not made reasonable security arrangements to reduce the risk of incorrectly addressed mail.
He said each should review and revise their plans for responding to the change of addresses.
“Health’s current plan, which relies on residents to submit the address-change form, is not realistic,” Steele wrote, citing a reliance on individual initiative, the high number of address changes, a cumbersome change process, and the fact that not all wrongly addressed mail will be returned.
Finance’s plan is, in Steele’s view, “somewhat” more realistic than Health’s plan.
He said Finance has fewer changes to make — just under 2,000 addresses for GN employees — and more pay officers available to assist with mailing address changes.
However, an overreliance on individual initiative and the still high number of changes means the department will suffer “the same drawbacks as Health’s approach,” Steele wrote.
By comparison, because most income assistance mail from Family Services is delivered to Iqaluit residents through monthly in-person meetings, Steele said Family Services “had made reasonable security arrangements to reduce the risk of misaddressed mail.”
He determined there has been no material increase in risk for Human Resources.
He said the risk of wrongly addressed employee-discipline mail “is already mitigated by the fact that HR’s preferred delivery methods are hand-delivery to the employee at work or e-mail delivery to the employee’s GN e-mail address.”
Steele recommends Health contact Iqalummiut before Oct. 31 to obtain their civic address, streamline the Nunavut Health Insurance Program address-change process, and “ensure NHIP staff is trained and resourced to process the expected volume of address changes.”
He wrote that Finance should also reach out to Iqalummiut before Oct. 31 to obtain their civic address, allow employees “to change their own mailing address when signed into e-Personality’s self-service feature, and ensure pay and benefits officers are trained and resourced to process the expected volume of address changes.”
He recommends Family Services “follow through on its existing plans to add a civic address field to the ISDS [income support delivery system] database and to capture in that field, prior to the mailing of T5007 tax slips in 2025, the civic address of all Iqaluit clients.”
The report stated there are no recommendations for Human Resources.
Human Resources Department spokesperson Irma Arkus said that while Steele didn’t specifically make any recommendations to that department, it would review his report and evaluate “how to ensure privacy-sensitive mail is used for correspondence with employees.”
Neither the Finance nor Health departments responded requests for comment on the privacy commissioner’s report.
Thanks commissioner Steele. More reasons to tell people to never work for canada post.
Not like there ever short staff. I’m sure all those huge line-ups we see are just people waiting in line to apply for post office job.
Rankin post office hasn’t been opened in weeks now.
OMG I have to redo all my mail whenever I move to another place. OMG Unlike how it was previously when a box number was kept. What a lot to deal with, on top of my mail in the hands of others. CHANGE IT NOW. FIX THIS NOW.
Oh my! Anytime we move or split or buy or sell … change box and get our mail into more and more hands that is already pathetic. YIKES! How can I protect my mail? The awful part is to redo our mail and call or email so many places to change our address. Help!!!!!!
What is Privacy Commissioner worried about, USA/Israeli Secrets on Iron Dome??? hehe.
I am confident that Canada Post’s decision to discontinue the use of fixed postal codes is not beneficial to the people of Nunavut. Prefixed postal codes enable individuals to shop and receive free shipping from Amazon, which is a more cost-effective option than shopping at overpriced stores in the area. I urge Canada Post to reconsider this decision and take into consideration the needs of the people of Nunavut.