A letter to my MP

An open letter which I've just fired off to my Member of Parliment, the Privacy Commissioner and to Equifax...

Last year in the United States, an act was passed which ensured US citizens may have access to a free summary once a year of all credit information on file for that person. As of yesterday, consumers in 13 Western states have free online access to their credit reports, soon to be available to all citizens of the US.

It is my understanding that under PIPEDA, Canadian citizens have the right to access information in their files at minimal or no cost. If an organization, such as Equifax, has my information documented electronically in a database, and this information is already accessible online, shouldn't there be no cost involved in my accessing that information?

I understand there are hard costs to providing such a service (hardware, software, bandwidth and technicians), but surely this is nowhere near the cost to process these orders by hand when providing a report via the mail - a service which Equifax does provide free of charge. If Equifax is reporting a $25 million dollar profit for their Canadian operations in the first quarter of 2004, then I would think the $14.95 they are currently charging for an online report covers far more than just the base costs involved.

Shouldn't Canadian citizens have the same right to free online access of our personal information held by credit reporting agencies as our neighbours to the South are now granted? In a time where identity theft is a real and growing concern, isn't timely access to this information important to the privacy of Canadians?

What really kills me is that the reports are free via mail. The info is all in electronic format to begin with, likely the staff members at Equifax use the same web based interface to access the reports. So why, why, why - someone please tell me - is it that you charge for a service that requires no human interaction and is fully automated, but provide free a service that requires about $5 (in terms of staff time required to verify your request and mail your report back) and almost a dollar in postage?