The privacy commissioner has moved her focus from Facebook’s privacy policy issues to Canadian mortgage brokers, as she said yesterday that mortgage brokers still have a ways to go to ensure the privacy of their clients are protected.

Jennifer Stoddart said that the privacy office investigated the case where hundreds of credit reports were stolen by a person impersonating a mortgage broker 2 years ago, and found that the brokers who were investigated have tightened up their security but still have a ways to go.

The main areas of improvement need to be:

More physical alarm systems in place

Secure walls and other physical safeguards to protect the files

Computer systems that restrict the access to potential clients credit reports

Need to be more careful in disposing of their files

With mortgage broker‘s only making up 25-30% of mortgage origination market share, the last thing the industry needs is concerns over the privacy of clients information. Mortgage broker market share is much higher in the UK for example, and was in the US too, before the housing crisis.

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