November 26, 2011

ACC: Sends Sensitive Claimant file to strangers

After demanding an IT sweep of her file, an ACC claimant was told her file was "inadvertently released" to three organisations: Waikeria Prison, Gore Medical Centre, and the Auckland Family Doctors.
"ACC Sensitive Claims Unit regrets to advise you that when the emails were being scanned and watermarked, a technical error arose which resulted in the documents being faxed to three fax numbers held in the memory of the multi function device."
The claimant, an ACC Sensitive Claims client, has grown increasingly concerned about privacy issues within the organisation and rightly so - in the two months it took to have her IT sweep request actioned, ACC managed to send it (via fax) to just about everyone else but her! 

ACC responded by saying it was a "random technical error" and that it had "never happened before." Yet, as the claimant points out, if ACC only found out about this "random error" because one of the unintended recipients contacted them, how do they know it has never happened before? 

More worrisome, is why it took ACC two months to notify the claimant about this total breech of privacy and would they even have bothered if she'd not been writing to them consistently asking for a record of who has is accessing her information?

For now, ACC are conducting one of their infamously time-wasting troubleshooting investigations and keeping everyone up to speed on their ... um... progress.
"Thank you for your email. Unfortunately at this point in time, I am unable to provide you with a timeframe as to when ACC will be in a position to fully respond to the questions you have raised."
Another claimant seems to have an uncanny skill at interpreting letters such as this and I, for one, think she has hit the nail on the head:
"[ACC] Her email may as well have said... at this particular time I have to tell you to go suck eggs whilst we do our best to cover our asses, pass the buck, and just hope you will become so frustrated, you'll go away."
Opinion:
I find it abhorrent that this is the same organisation that filed a $250,000 defamation lawsuit against me for daring to call them "Incompetent." I also don't believe in coincidences either. This claimant is also my ACC advocate - the woman who has been relentlessly sending letters to the Privacy Commission and the Ombudsman for the breech of privacy in my own case.  How uncanny is that?
  









10 comments:

  1. Terrible! You think waiting 2 mths to tell her on the week of elections, when the media are distracted, was by chance?

    What part of it is actually a 'technical error'?

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  2. I'm thinking the "technical error" was some twat pushing random buttons on a fax machine!

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  3. "Thank you for your email. Unfortunately at this point in time, I am unable to provide you with a timeframe as to when ACC will be in a position to fully respond to the questions you have raised."

    SO WHAT THE FUCK HAVE THEY BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST TWO MONTHS?

    I hope she has gone to the Privacy Commissioner because that is bloody appalling. It's suppose to be the Sensitive Claims Unit FFS.

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  4. There is nothing sensitive about the SCU. I find this outrageous in its own right let alone the recent changes implemented by ACC, whereby, new claimants will only have four hours of counselling.... tell me, how many hours do the perps get again? Oh yeah, that's right... unlimited, free, and for the duration of their prison sentence............

    And to think... ELECTIONS TODAY PEOPLE!!!!

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  5. An election won't solve the issue Jax, as it's not Nick Smith cocking up, it's his public service organisation that quite coincidentally screws up willy nilly. That won't change with a change of Minister of ACC, but I dare say the likes of Denise Cosgrove and the department head, Dr Peter Jansen are culpable and should fall heavily on their swords. The new Minister of ACC will have the dubious task of removing both from ACC and also stop them from having any future influence in government matters whatsoever. That means Jansen has to resign from the advisory group he is on and that's in the least.

    There is enough information around to suggest that these highlighted incidences are merely the tip of the iceberg and perhaps a Royal Commission be formed to investigate the inner workings of the SCU, ACC in general, and to be set up with wide ranging powers to confidentially take submissions from those that have suffered so the claimants know they can voice their concerns knowing their evidence is confidential, including having name suppression to hide their identity and not make them open to political points scoring.

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  6. Dude. These ACC peeps are creeps. I find it sus man that that guy sues you for defaming him and now this advocate who fought hard at your side ends up also with a privacy breach. How many of SCU peeps have this happened to? We don't know. Asswipes.

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  7. the tip of the iceberg is about to be knocked off...the acc is a cruel and inhumane burden on all of us...time for class action-NOT THEIR VICTIM ACC FORUM

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  8. Stop blaming a piece of machinery for a clearly human error. Stupid gits. Clearly they want to look more like .... oh crap the condition escapes me...
    Sometimes I wonder if SCU want to be horrid so word gets out and eventually no one will want to speak up or seek help. I hope I'm wrong.
    I really like the comment about what the person emailing back could really be saying.

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  9. WELL DONE JAX

    Good on you Jax for standing up for what is right. Winston Churchill said, "If you will not stand and fight for what is right and what you believe in, there will come a time when you cannot stand and fight at all". In my opinion, ACC staff destroy peoples lives and crush ones ability to stand up at all, let alone try to fight for what is right. So, good on you on behalf of those long since crushed. Well done & keep going - you have alot of support for your good work.

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  10. My doctor advised me to by-pass the SCU and ACC and to pay for counselling myself as he said they were a total waste of time! I wonder how many other Drs are giving this advice???

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