Over the last several months, Alberta's privacy commissioner has received a flood of reports of privacy breaches across the province.
CTV News has learned the privacy commission has launched nearly 100 complaints into privacy breaches in the province since May 2010.
The news comes as construction workers on a site downtown found several boxes full of sensitive mortgage documents left in a dumpster.
That case has sparked the commissioner's 91st investigation.
"It's pretty sensitive information and it could be used to harm people," Privacy Commissioner Frank Work said.
The man who found the documents said workers on the construction site already monitored the dumpster, as it often fills with garbage from people not involved in the construction project.
But this find was different.
"Photocopies of someone's license, bank account numbers, mortgage numbers, approvals," Darren Calihoo said, describing the documents found in the dumpster. "[There were] photocopied cheques of somebody giving a deposit for a house."
The information found in the documents helped Calihoo contact the people affected; more than thirty people were contacted.
Amanda Welliver was one of them.
"It was a very weird feeling," Welliver said. "First it hurt, then it shocked me, now I'm just plain upset."
"It's not garbage to be swept under or thrown out, it is very personal information."
Frank Work has some strong words for businesses handling such sensitive information.
"For heavens sakes, smarten up," Work said. "Some of the things we are seeing are utterly irresponsible."
Work said it is the responsibility of the creator of the documents, and anyone who came in contact with them to keep the information they contain protected.
The documents in the discarded boxes were owned by a mortgage broker, the events leading up to their dumping is being investigated by the privacy commissioner.
With files from Kevin Armstrong
