The Martlet

Sometime between Saturday, Jan. 7, and the morning of Sunday, Jan. 8, a break-in occurred at UVic’s Administrative Services Building. Several items were taken, including payroll information, such as employees’ personal banking information and social insurance numbers. The information was located inside a safe on a backup storage drive. UVic emailed approximately 11 000 past and present employees — including staff, faculty and work-study students — to alert them that their information may be compromised.

According to Vice President of Finance and Operations Gayle Gorrill, people should be aware of two main risks. “One risk is related to banking information,” explains Gorrill, adding that the information taken is the same as the information contained on the bottom of a cheque such as branch and transit numbers. “The second is potential risk of identity theft, and that’s related to the social insurance number.”

UVic is recommending people whose information was compromised contact their bank and credit agencies to let them know their information was taken.

“Their bank will then give them advice around what they should do, and what they should do might be to close the account, might be to put a flag on the account, which means there’d be extra attention and due diligence if there’s any activity on the account,” explains Gorrill.

Credit agencies will also be able to flag an account.

UVic has contacted banks and credit unions to alert them of the break-in.

While there is no evidence that any personal information has been used, Gorrill says the UVic administration is taking the compromise very seriously and encourages those affected to do so as well.

Saanich Police Public Information Officer Dean Jantzen says it does not appear the personal information was targeted. “This looks like a random chance or oppor- tunistic-type crime, in that the thieves were likely targeting the safe itself, not any specific content,” he says. “In that, I mean they were rooting through the office, they see a safe and they took it with them, right? But they took it along with other stuff.”

The Administrative Services Building was broken into using forced entry on a main floor door with a tool.

“Once inside the administrative building, there was one particular wing that was tar- geted and several locked offices were entered, again with force,” says Jantzen. “Once inside these offices, there was force used into locked drawers and locked cabinets and stuff like that. And along with the typical items that were taken were things like computers, small electronics and some cash. And then, as luck would have it, there was a safe that was inside one of the cabinets. [It was] removed and was actually taken.”

“It looks like the taking of this information was really just happenstance — your average sort of business break-in.” Jantzen says the police have collected some forensic evidence that has yet to be processed.

“It’s sort of preliminary stages of the investigation, so nothing yet much to report.”

UVic President David Turpin has commissioned a review of the university’s security measures.

On Tuesday, Jan. 10, the Professional Employees Association sent out a press release calling on UVic to ensure safeguards are put in place so that a security breach does not happen again.

Anyone who is on UVic’s payroll and may have had their personal information compromised can contact the university at 250-472- 4333 or privacyinfo@uvic.ca.