Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Hydro Corporation’
Oh Those Law Breaking Fools… Toronto Hydro Is At It Again Breaching Your Privacy With Their Incompetence
Police have been called in to determine how a breach in Toronto Hydro’s e-bill system resulting in the private information of 179 000 Torontonians happened. Individuals, name, address, phone number, account information were released to unknown sources for unknown purposes. This is obviously a very serious matter.
Based on my previous writings on Toronto Hydro it’s pretty clear that I do not believe anyone on their executive team has the skill set or intelligence to confidently change a light bulb let alone run the largest utility in the province. While everything Midas touched turned to Gold, it seems everything Toronto Hydro touches turns into an unnecessary legal situation brought on by a unique mix of callousness, ignorance and incompetence.
These guys have once again breached the privacy of Torontonians, this time through their online billing system. It seems the folks at Toronto Hydro are incapable of working technology if it was developed after 1992 (the internet, wind turbines, adobe – let alone 90 year old hydro poles).
They knowingly allowed their infrastructure to electrocute and kill people’s family pets, promising to fix that problem over the course of months while more pets needlessly suffered electrocution. They denied kids could be electrocuted until many were one afternoon. They’ve lied left right and centre as part of their illegal application for the installation of an anemometer off the Scarborough Bluffs. They breached hundreds of individuals privacy during that process, and now 179 000 of their client’s private data is breached through their website.
When their lawyer reviewed my writings on Toronto Hydro’s illegal application, culture of lying and general inability to operate with the slightest bit of competence during a public consultation process – she agreed that the application I had linked to constituted a violation of law, did not dispute any of my charges and merely asked me to change the link to a new illegal application that was missing some of their privacy act violations.
The scary part is these guys are involved in very serious business and clearly well over their heads.
They’ve already killed people’s family pets, failed to act immediately to prevent further deaths, electrocuted children who were just playing in the streets, committed over three hundred violations of law as part of their anemometer application, and now failed to properly secure their 179 000 client’s private data. If this represents the last few months at Toronto Hydro – what’s next?
They still have done nothing to address their breach of privacy for the over three hundred individuals including myself affected by their illegal application’s breach of privacy in April. If you’re one of the 179 000 clients whose privacy has been breached, my only words for you with these guys is ‘good luck’.
Toronto Hydro Corporation attracts scandal like sugar attracts ants.
It’s a good thing they aren’t responsible for the drinking water.
It isn’t known how the privacy breach occurred this time, but the Toronto Police and the Privacy Commissioner are investigating.
For more on their latest privacy breach (the second in three months) see the links below:
Toronto Hydro Energy Services Fog of Lies and Irresponsibility Impacts Housing Market
I receive a lot of emails from folks who are looking for information on things on google, end up on my blog and email me their questions. Things have ranged from questions about accessing federal and provincial assistance programs, questions about Toronto’s wind farm, accessing subsidized daycare, tax bills – and of course local issues in the Scarborough area. I do strive to share information with folks who are looking, even if I need to call around or spend sometime looking into an issue for them.
I got an email last night about Toronto Hydro’s proposed near-shore wind farm. With the sender’s permission I’ve put the text below. Take a read:
John,
I am considering the purchase of a home in the Beach but I am concerned about the proposed wind farm. It looks to me from a recent document I read that the wind farm could be as close as 1.4 KM from the shore in the Beach community. All the reading I have done suggests that there can be noise issues at 2KM or greater.
Any advice for me with this issue? Should I visit a wind farm to see for myself how noisy they can be? Will sound travel faster over water? Have you read about nosie issues from off-shore wind farms?
I informed a person who lives in the Beach about this issue not too long ago and he hadn’t even heard about it. And this fellow is a well-educated, highly-paid professional who lives on one of the best streets in the Beach. It seems to me that many people don’t even know about it. Anyhow, when I told him about it he was livid. In his words, he planned to “mobilize the troops.”
Any help/advice would be appreciated.
Regards,
(Unlike Toronto Hydro, I respect folks privacy and block out names)
My Response:
- I told him Toronto Hydro has said they would be placed 2-4KM offshore, but they also told us the anemometer would be 1.8KM offshore, until they sought permission without consultation to place it 1.2KM offshore. I also made him aware their lease is considerably closer to shore than 2KM.
- On the noise issue, I pointed out much is not known on impact of noise from wind turbines over the water, but we all know from cottages sound travels greater distances over water than land.
- I advised him that no one can say for certain if folks in the beach or Scarborough would be able to hear the impacts of an offshore farm, and Toronto Hydro has not shown any evidence that residents will not be able to.
- I did encourage him to buy the home, and not let Toronto Hydro’s irresponsibility prevent him from doing that, because thousands of residents are standing up to oppose Toronto Hydro’s environmentally irresponsible plan and we’re hopeful they can be stopped
Toronto Hydro Admits to Serious Privacy Breach and TO Hydro Legal Department Contacts http://laforet.ca
As requested by a lawyer who works for Toronto Hydro Corporation I would like to advise you that the links I provided in ‘THES Illegal Application Accepted by Bought and Paid For Ontario Liberal Government’ have been renewed after it was found that Toronto Hydro Energy Services exposed the personal information of hundreds of Guildwood residents, myself included, as part of hundreds of privacy violations they committed.
In the early hours of April 15 2009, I wrote a blog entry called ‘THES Illegal Application Accepted by Bought and Paid For Ontario Liberal Government’. In it I included two links to Toronto Hydro’s Project Evaluation Report and another to the Project Evaluation Report’s Appendices. I titled them “Toronto Hydro Energy Services Illegal Application – Project Evaluation Report” and “Toronto Hydro Energy Services Illegal Application Appendices. I used the word ‘illegal’ because Toronto Hydro Energy Services has failed to comply with the legal requirements one is expected to meet to get to the point of filing a Project Evaluation Report for public review.
It turns out these links which I provided to folks in good faith to allow as many people as possible to read and comment on Toronto Hydro’s illegal application were in fact linked to reports that breached the privacy of hundred of respondents who have come forward to participate in the sham consultation process. Toronto Hydro Energy Services failed to live up to it’s legal obligation to protect the private information of hundreds of individuals who wrote to them and made their information easily accessible by anyone with a .pdf reader and a limited understanding how .pdfs work.
David O’Brien, President of Toronto Hydro Corporation, wrote a response to me this afternoon after I complained about a breach of my personal information. The subject line he chose was “Violation of Privacy” . In the body of the email he states “Toronto Hydro Energy Services advises that personal information was inadvertently provided in the digital copy of an Appendix to the Project Evaluation Report for the proposed Anemometer in Lake Ontario.”
He goes on to explain it has been pulled from the website, would be corrected and a new copy would be posted, this time without violating the privacy of hundreds of Guildwood and other Scarborough Bluffs residents.
Before I got this email however, I noted there was a considerable amount of traffic on my website considering I had not written anything in days. Toronto Hydro Corporation logged a total of 73 page visits on http://laforet.ca today between 8am and 5:30pm. Considering the ‘Anne Mometer‘ incident the folks at Gartner Lee (where the Project Evaluation Report was drafted) and Toronto Hydro Corporation had stopped what were 30 page views a day visits and have opted for more discreet, less frequent visits.
Around 5:15pm today, I got an email from Toronto Hydro Corporation’s Legal Department. Any email that begins with “Dear Mr. Laforet: Your blog currently contains…” generally can’t be expected to end well. Especially if it’s marked ‘high priority’ and coming from someone whose title is ‘Senior Commercial Solicitor’.
That being said; this email wasn’t a libel chill or what one might expect a blogger to receive from a corporation one is jousting with. That’s what makes it kind of neat.
Toronto Hydro’s legal department states “That version of the Project Evaluation Report and appendices has been removed from the Toronto Hydro Energy Services web site and has been replaced with a revised version that restricts the display of personal information.”
“We are requesting that you please immediately remove the current link and replace it with the following (and advise your readers that a new link is now available):”
For clarification the link Toronto Hydro’s legal department has asked me to correct is the ‘Toronto Hydro Energy Services Illegal Appendices’ to ensure it is the right version of their illegal appendices and not the one that also contravenes privacy legislation is made available. I’ve also corrected the link to ‘Toronto Hydro Energy Services Illegal Project Evaluation Report’ – the one I referred to as Bull Shit.
Regular readers at http://laforet.ca are aware that Toronto Hydro Energy Services has often been invited to respond unedited to any of the accusations I’ve made about their conduct plan or other information relevant to this proposal. In fact, there is a standing offer out there. At no point has anyone from Toronto Hydro Energy Services ever taken me up on this, and frankly when I saw all the activity from Toronto Hydro Corporation today on my site, I was anticipating a libel chill – although it would be baseless, it is a tactic big bullies have often used against their online detractors.
When I received an email from a lawyer with Toronto Hydro Corporation who had read ”THES Illegal Application Accepted by Bought and Paid For Ontario Liberal Government” and knew someone at Toronto Hydro Corporation had viewed “A Process As Tainted As the Lake Bed They’d Like to Disturb” and The Entrenched Corporate Irresponsibility of Toronto Hydro Energy Services in addition to a number of other pieces, part of me was intrigued that there was no mention of the language I’ve used to describe Toronto Hydro Energy Services.
I’m not a lawyer, but I have a reasonably sound understanding of law. I would like to think in a situation like this, if I was on their side of the fence, I would not have someone from a legal department contact an individual who regularly lays body blows on the organization requesting his help in minimizing the impact of that organization’s breach of law. I would only contact someone like that if they crossed the line, but certainly not after having read so many unanswered charges. If I was on the other side of this particularly situation, I would have asked O’Brien (who wrote me anyways on this topic and likely with legal input) to throw in a P.S. or something.
I am someone who has demonstrated his concern for the Guildwood community through years of public involvement. One of the men or women spray painting hand wells, after making sure THES would no longer continue killing family pets with them, could have asked and I would have gladly complied.
Naturally I do stand by comments I’ve made and have stated in past I am fully prepared to back them up, if ever challenged to. But for THES to have someone in their legal department to not take issue with any of this and to contact me about something that is resolved by simply killing the links and letting me figure it out on my own, I found interesting.
To me, it demonstrated they too recognize nothing I’ve said has crossed the line and isn’t actionable. Which in itself raises some interesting questions about what their internal legal opinion is of their own situation and conduct. Personally I like to make sure I am prepared to defend my actions before doing anything, but I’ve found a link with the advice for the folks at Toronto Hydro Energy Services to review: How to Respond to Accusations When Guilty
As I said before, I’m not a lawyer, but the actions of Toronto Hydro Energy Services and it’s employees and agents have been so inappropriate, I’ve known for months and have been open about how crappy of a spot they’ve put themselves in.
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