Privacy commissioner looking into missing health info

A computer tape containing information about almost 700,000 Albertans went missing while being transferred between government facilities, an Alberta Health spokesman said.

David Dear was confirming some information that appeared in an Edmonton Journal article Wednesday.

He said the information that was on the tapes, which were being sent to be converted to microfiche, contained some personal information, but not details that would be valuable to criminals involved in identity theft.

"There are names, health care and payroll numbers, payroll rates and the family status of the names on it," Dear said. "So there's no real personal health information on it, per se.

"But we take any potential breach of privacy quite seriously, and that's what this is, a potential breach. So we've reported it to the privacy commissioner and he's investigating."

Dear said birth dates weren't part of the information on the tapes.

The Journal, quoting unnamed government sources, said the reel-to-reel tapes were encrypted.

Last November, police found credit backgrounds for a number of provincial public servants while searching a hotel room. The information contained phone numbers, birth dates and social insurance numbers.

with files from Canadian Press