EQC regrets leak of 8000 claims

The Earthquake Commission has apologised after inadvertently releasing information from thousands of claims to a customer and their lawyer.

The customer was only meant to receive their own claim information.

EQC chief executive Sid Miller said the privacy breach was the result of staff error.

“Unfortunately, a staff member last Thursday failed to follow several key security steps, including well-established password protection of the documents, despite receiving the appropriate training.”

The customer and their lawyer received information related to 8000 claims.

Despite the scale of the mistake, Miller characterised the “most disappointing” aspect of the matter as the fact the Government-owned insurer had “multi-layered security measures to protect the information about its customers”. EQC moved to fix the error as soon as they became aware. The lawyer involved had deleted the documents and EQC was awaiting confirmation the customer had done the same.

“We are also contacting all affected customers to apologise to them and explain the steps we have taken to protect their claims information,” Miller said.